When Life Gives You Blue Crabs, Make Remoulade.
I recently read a Washington Post article (subscription) that evokes the familiar refrain: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” It seems that there have been unwelcome aliens that have invaded the shores of Italy, in particular, Venice, Italy: Atlantic Blue Crabs.
It is postulated that they skillfully ensconced themselves “in the ballast water of barge ships” and invaded the Italian coastal waters, particularly in hyposaline estuaries, where they thrive (ask anyone from Delaware or Maryland).
It seems that the Mediterranean seawater temperature has risen sufficiently in recent years that since at least 2012, the invading species has found a true haven in the Venetian waters: warmth, lots of delicious freshly dead sea life and detritus to eat, and no natural predators.
At first, Italians were repelled by their appearance and taste. They were used to the local granseola (spider crabs) and moeche (soft shell crabs), but these invaders? Insipido!
But the younger generation of Italian chefs in the area are adapting, viewing the invaders “not as pests, but as ingredients.” And a remarkable thing has happened: the local detritus has confirmed the old adage that “you are what you eat”: crabs have been feeding locally for a few years now, so what was previously a bland-tasting meat has transformed into something much more pleasing to the local palate:
Delizioso Piatto di Granchio Blu!
Lesson? When presented with unpalatable invaders with foreign tastes, let them marinate in the area for a while. They may end up adding their distinctiveness to your own culture.
If you can’t beat them – eat them?
1Blue crab are the tastiest seafood on the Gulf Coast too.
When I lived in PI/SPI and nearby in the Rio Grande Valley and did a lot of fishing blue crabs were about the easiest catch around. They are a bait-stealing PITA if you’re fishing with bait, but with a couple of crab traps they just crawl right in.
I think that you meant to say “hypersaline’ instead of”hyposaline” above, as more saline than the adjacent ocean waters.
2Down here in Deep South Texas the Laguna Madre is a large bay that is more saline than the Gulf itself, hypersaline, and a prime fishing and crabbing area; and a prime spawning area for many aquatic species.
So much so that the Laguna Madre and the adjacent Gulf waters attract anglers from around the world.
PI/SPI, that would be Port Isabel and South Padre Island, Texas. Which were fantastic places 40-60 years ago, but have been overrun with tourist related developments in the last few decades. Was a great place for fishing and sailing, a bit crowded now.
And of the many seafood choices available here, various fish like seatrout, reds, flounder, different shrimp and crab, the blue crabs are the tastiest, imo. Of course you don’t dwell too much on what blue crabs like to eat…
3Check out the fishing down here. And it’s one of the best places for sailing (and other boating) anywhere, great waters and almost always a good breeze; except for the occasional hurricanes.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=port+Isabel+fishing&atb=v272-1&ko=-1&t=ddg_android&ia=web
4We Marylanders only wish blue crabs thrived in our hyposaline waters.
They used to. Pollution, winter dredging of buried females etc. have driven the population down to very low levels.
Combine that with welfare, better education and wider job opportunities, and the black women on the Eastern Shore now won’t pick crabs. Such picking as does get done is done by immigrants. Local jumbo crab meat is $40/lb.
Even whole crabs — where you pick — run $500/dozen for big jimmies around peak periods.
65 years ago, Boxhead the Crab King sold boiled crabs on the street in Norfolk for $12/dozen. And it wasn’t unknown for a man to be knifed over a dozen. Wr did like our crabs.
The way to get them then was to buy a chicken neck for 10 cents, let it rot a little, tie it to some twine, wade out about waist deep with a peach basket in an inner tube and cast out the neck.
Each retrieve would come back with 2 or 3 crabs clinging to it.
I once got 100 crabs in 10 minutes off Ocean View.
5Typo. not $12/dozen but $1. Boxhead’s crabs might not have been the freshest.
6For the love of heaven, Italy, SEND THEM HOME! The Chesapeake Bay is, while not completely bereft of blue crabs, dealing with far smaller numbers than it used to contain. It’s largely our own fault for allowing all sorts of pollution, but we still miss them. Their scarcity makes them far too expensive, now, to enjoy the crab feasts that used to be a feature of life along the Chesapeake Bay.
7Correct me if am wrong, but, if you make lemonade out of lemons would you not in turn make blue crab ade out of blue crabs? Curious iowan wants to learn stuff.
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