Let me choose the gender of my crab!
Selecting live crabs brings you closer to the wild-catching experience with the snappy angry blue crustacean. Through the melee you notice a few have reddish-orange claws, while the others sport a brilliant blue. A few also show underbellies, or aprons that have a bell-shaped tab, rather than an elongated one. One or two of them even have aprons protruding away from the main shell with a peculiar sack of dark colored eggs within. Obviously, these crabs represent the females. Yes, ordering relies on the sex of the crab, especially if you don’t want to find crab roe.
Biology makes no mistake in naming the blue crab. The male or jimmy, and the red-clawed crab, the female or sook fit the menu differently. If you’re planning a crab feast, you may want the larger crabs, the jimmies. Most crab lovers prefer the larger size in the male. They indeed keep growing past maturity. In fact, they grow until they perish, while the females stop. Consequently, the male meat cooks to a flakiness and the female meat to a denseness. You may ask for the male crab, likewise for the larger jumbo chunks pulled from the back swimming legs. Crab imperial looks amazing with these jumbo chunks.
Stereotypically, the Asian culture asks for female sooks since they like the crab eggs or “caviar” from the apron region. She-Crab Soup receives acclaim from this culture. Crab roe floating through the broth with pristine lump and a creamy roux finds favor from a sophisticated diner. Marylanders and chefs, likewise, ask for female sooks for making crab cakes. The denser meat and crab roe together pack a cake sturdy and jampacked with salty sweetness.
Back to the crab cooler and the live crabs. A deep appreciation for how Mother Nature grew these two crabs and their short lifespan causes one to think, “Time to seize the crab moment.”
