A friend sends me a photo via email, with her daughter pointing at a pile of crabs when her family traveled to Hong Kong. The crabs in that photo are the eye-catcher as well as a memory-opener; I totally forget to check if the lovely little girl has grown much taller. My focus with that picture lays only on the crabs -- the Chinese hairy crabs, also more popularly called Dazha crabs -- they look newly caught. My recollections of the first time eating Dazha crabs, twenty years ago, are equally fresh, like I just have finished the trip and got back from Hong Kong yesterday.
To all Chinese, Dazha Crabs are not just any crabs; they are not the remarkable long footed Alaska Snow Crabs, neither the gigantic royal King Crabs, nor the reddish, tasty Dungeness Crabs from Fisherman’s Warf in San Francisco…. but rather the hairy, small, plain looking crabs that only live in Yangcheng Lake, China, and mature from September to October each year. The annual production, approximately 2,195 tons in total in the whole world, has been tracked and marked so precisely that only a stock analysis can compete with it. However, the big reputation doesn’t come cheap; Dazha crabs are as valuable as the “Kopi Luwak” coffee beans to all coffee aficionados, or, like the Grande Champagne Cognac to brandy lovers. Chinese epicures weigh Dazha crabs as gold; coincidently, the prices of both items are getting higher and higher every year.
If Chinese tourists were asked a wish list of domestic trips, going to Hong Kong and having a taste of Dazha crabs would always be in the top ten. In the last half-century, Hong Kong has been the depot of Dazha crabs, just like Amsterdam is the logistic center for diamonds, not South Africa where the diamond mines are. The advantage of being the product hub has made Hong Kong worth taking a flight to visit if tourists do not want to miss Dazha Crabs in their life time.
I did try the cheapest way of tasting Dazha crabs, while I had another first time experience, a home-stay, in Hong Kong. The accommodation was in a high-rise building located at Chung-Hang (the Central), which was recommended by a friend who had done a lot of backpacking around the world. I booked the room and went with a friend. The landlord proved himself a good businessman: he upgraded us to a just vacant, bigger guest room, which was simple, spacious, and clean. The rent was about two third of a three-star hotel. Most conveniently, its location was close to everything: cinema, restaurants, supermarket, shopping areas, and public transportations.
By the end of the first day, we passed by a supermarket. The Dazha crabs were piling up on the stalls which lined up along the walkway -- I didn’t know that it was the high season of Dazha crabs. However my friend, a ‘seafoodaholic’, would mention later how many places he had noticed selling Dazha crabs all over Hong Kong. Each crab was tied up with straws in a traditional cross. The crabs were stacked up so high to show the good harvest. The quantities also made the price so low that it would be a shame to reject such a temptation. We brought two male and two female crabs even though we were not sure what we were going to do with the raw crabs.
Crabs are supposed to be eaten with hot condiments to balance their cool effect on the human body. My seafood loving friend was no stranger to this type of traditional Chinese health maintenance. He then bought Shao-hsing wine, Zhen-Jiang black vinegar and ginger – the most typical three items to serve with crabs.
When we stepped into the home-stay, the landlord bumped into us with our hands full; he saw the crabs right away.
“Do you want me to steam the crabs for you?” He smiled like he was going to have a delicacy himself. Without waiting for our response, he fetched the crabs, turned around and walked to the kitchen. We heard him say “I have a perfect steaming cage for the crabs” before he disappeared behind the kitchen curtain.
Before long, he sent the orange red crabs into our room, together with plates and crab eating tools: “Enjoy.” The smile was still on his face, like he was also cheered up by the crabs even just by preparing them. That was the kindest thing I’ve ever received from the very practical Hongkongers.
Delighting ourselves with Shao-hsing wine, my friend and I enjoyed our feast. He ate three and I had one because I was worried about my allergy to shellfish, especially crabs. Luckily, nothing happened – that was also the first time I found out that it’s the most expensive crab that allowed me to be allergy-free.
Though not too fascinated by them, I have tried Dazha crabs several times over the past two decades. No matter if the feast was taken place in Regency hotel Taipei, or in the Michelin restaurants, those crabs were definitely Dazha since I haven’t had any allergies from them. However, in those fancy dining rooms, there was something missing; I couldn’t find the same taste as the first time trying Dazha crab at my first home-stay in Hong Kong.
Due to the price increasing more and more, unavoidably, Dazha Crabs lead to a counterfeit problem, which once would only be found in the ginseng from Korea or caviar from Russia. Nowadays, fraudulent Dazha crabs have increased to twenty times more than the true ones. All sorts of methods to decrease fakes have been placed on the Dazha crabs, e.g. attached with laser labels, special-made rings, or watermark barcodes, and so on. Ironically, the more anti-fraud methods have been used, the more ‘Dazha crabs’ are created.
I shall sincerely recommend a most simple and efficient way to tell if the crab is the true Dazha: like the food tasters for the emperors in ancient times or the security guards for the presidents, I am very much willing to try your Dazha crabs for you –-- if I don’t get an allergy, it must be the real thing!
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