autumn is the best season for the Chinese people to savor the delicacy of the hairy crabs. The hairy crabs have been put up for sale on the market in small quantities but the yield will decrease from a year ago due to the sweltering heat wave in the summer.
The hairy crabs from Hongze Lake are being promoted at a farm market in Huai’an city.
The vendors there said the crabs have not matured and the flesh is not as plump as it should be. The customers are buying hairy crabs for the sake of having something new, the vendors added.
The hairy crabs will not be supplied to the market in large quantities until one month later when the flesh has become plump, insiders say.
In the meantime, the yield of hairy crabs is expected to decrease due to the continuous heat wave in the summer. The adverse weather conditions in the past months, however, have wrecked havoc on the cultivation of the hairy crabs, as is evidenced by the declining yield.
The yield from Hongze Lake breeding areas is estimated at 4000 tons this year, a lower level from a year ago.
The celebrated hairy crabs from the Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou city are also victimized by the adverse weather conditions such as the excessive rainfall in May and June and the sweltering heat wave in July and August.
A crab farmer in Shajiabang, Changshu County, said the heat wave has caused adverse effect on the shucking of crabs.
According to the crab farmers, the most critical thing to do at present is to improve water quality by adding oxygen and low calcium powder to the ponds to adjust the water quality. The cost of crab breeding this year is expected to rise slightly from a year ago with the unit cost rising from 3,000 yuan for 666 square meters to 3600 yuan.
Hairy crabs, also known as Dazha crab or Chinese mitten crab, are so named because their front claws have a thick mass of hair. While the crabs are considered the main delicacy of a meal, they usually do not appear in a traditional Chinese meal until the very end, but before the watermelon.
The most famous hairy crabs come from Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou. These crabs are considered to have the very best flavor although rumor has it that the original species went extinct in the early 1990’s due to over fishing and the current species is actually from Japan.
