from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
behindthefrenchmenu@gmail.com
The Alaskan Red King Crab.
Photograph courtesy of Jet-Fresh
The King Crab also called the Alaskan King Crab, Kamchatka King Crab or Red King Crab has just as many names on French Menus: Crab Royal, Crabe Royal d’Norvege or Crabe Royal de Kamchatka.
France loves crab and the white meat of one or more of these tasty crustaceans will be on the menus of nearly all French seafood restaurants. The locally caught crabs, the Crabe Tourteau, the Edible Brown Crab, and the Crab Araignée, the European Spider Crab are the most popular; they are tasty and relatively inexpensive. The Snow Crab, the Crabe de Neige, follows on as the leading imported crab. The most highly rated imported crabs are the expensive King Crabs. King Crabs, with their snowy white meat and very special taste and texture, has no competition at the top of the popularity polls.
Red King Crab legs on sale in a market.
Photograph courtesy of fictures
www.flickr.com/photos/fictures/7099468/
A whole king crab will not be on the menu.
Until the early 2000s, most Red King Crabs (Alaskan) arrived in France in cans at very high prices; all these King Crabs came from the Northern Pacific. Even now with the Alaskan Red King Crabs coming from Norway, (which is a long way from Alaska) you are unlikely to see a whole fresh King Crab in a restaurant as a large crab can weigh 10 kg and measure 1.5 meter from leg to leg. Even the average King Crab weighs around two and a half kilos and its body contains no meat that most of us would want to eat.
The King Crab and an ecological disaster.
The king crab on French and European menus today results from a
man-made ecological disaster that has, so far, become a goldmine. In the 1960s
the Russians put large quantities of the Kamchatka king crabs, the Red King
Crab, from the North Pacific on a train and shipped them on the Trans-Siberian
railroad to their port at Murmansk a distance of 5743 kilometers (3568 miles).
They had no controls or evaluations, but they wanted to create a Russian
crabbing industry in the North Atlantic. There in the Murmansk Fjord, the crabs
multiplied and multiplied and destroyed the local fishermen’s nets, along with
much of the local fishing industry, and then they moved swiftly to Norwegian
waters. Then the Russians and Norwegians were forced to co-operate to control
this disaster, and one of the few results (at least in the short term) has been
the creation of a new crabbing industry. Many fishermen have given up their
nets and become crabbers, who receive more Euros per kilo that for any other
commercial catch. However, the story does not end here, and the crabs are
continuing to move along the Norwegian coast, and eating a lot of Norwegian
King Crab may still not be enough to save the cod fisheries.
The other King Crabs that are commercially fished in the seas off
Alaska are the Golden King Crab and the Blue King Crab. When the menu reads
Alaskan King Crab in Europe, it’s nearly always the Red King Crab. When the
crab meat is canned, you might have to read the small print as only the white
meat will be in the can.
The Red King Crab on French menus:
La Soupe de
Crabe Royal – A soup made
from the King Crab. (The crab’s body may be used for crab flavor and other
seafood products, but it will not be on the menu and in France rarely used in
crab soup).
Steamed king crab in a cream sauce.
www.flickr.com/photos/cityfoodsters/12163045876/
Pattes de Crabe
Royal avec Sauce Dijon Crémeuse - King's crab legs served with a
creamy Dijon
mustard sauce.
Pattes de Crabe Royal Grillées – Grilled king crab's legs.
Surf and Turf
Steak, King
Crab and asparagus.
Photograph courtesy
of Todd Dwyer
www.flickr.com/photos/ret0dd/4383729622/
Pattes de Crabe Royal Cuites à la Vapeur - Steamed King Crab's legs.
Ravioli de
Crabe Royal au Bouillon de Citronnelle et Gingembre - King Crab prepared as ravioli and served in a bouillon
flavored with lemongrass and ginger.
Raviolis Ouverts de Crabe Royal et Caviar d'Aquitaine – Open ravioli (flat disks of pasta) filled with king crab and the Caviar d'Aquitaine, a brand name for the farmed Siberian sturgeon caviar from the Gironde River. The Gironde River once had its own wild sturgeon but over-fishing ended that and now sturgeon farms there and elsewhere in Europe supply 90% of the caviar consumed in Europe and also export to the USA.
Coal-Roasted King Crab.
Crème
Fraiche, Miso, Lime, Coriander
Photograph courtesy of Lou
Stejskal
www.flickr.com/photos/loustejskal/24308115705/
French chefs consider the Norwegian Red King Crab better than the Alaskan Red King Crab though they are the same crab from albeit from different waters; their taste buds may be influenced by Norway being part of Europe, though it is not part of the EU. The main King Crab crabbing season is from October to January though they may be caught as a by-catch all year round. The Red King Crabs from the North Atlantic are also becoming more important for another reason. The Red King Crab's Alaskan brothers and sisters are experiencing a steady decline in numbers. Investigations that cited overfishing resulted in fishing limits set by the United States in the 1980s and 2000. However, those regulations have failed to stop the decline, and now warmer water from climate change is being investigated.
However, back in Norway, not everything in the garden is rosy; or rather not all the Red King Crabs are gold. The crabs keep advancing along the Norwegian coast, and that is a new cause for worry. Remember the story of the rabbits brought to Australia for food and hunting. Then, despite all attempts at control, Australia now has a population of close to 300 million wild rabbits that have caused and are causing devastation by destroying grasses, young plants, and tree bark. That continues the ecological damage by the destruction of other species including birds and fish whose life is interlinked with the same destroyed sources of food. Bringing in new species can and does destroy local populations that have no resistance to the imports.
Cooking King Crab’s legs at home.
If you are buying King Crabs’ legs in Europe or North American, they will have been boiled and flash frozen on board or upon arrival at the fishing port before being shipped. Read the package carefully, and you will see that despite all the recipes available all the work is basically just heating and adding flavor whether you grill, steam or roast them. Crab meat is very delicate, and so very little will be shipped without being cooked and frozen first.
An entrée, the French starter, of King Crab.
Photograph courtesy oe Ff
onetallchef
www.flickr.com/photos/96550666@N08/14318731138/
The Red King Crab, the Crabe Royal in the languages of France’s neighbors:
(Catalan - crabe royal du Kamtchatka), (Dutch - rode koningskrab), (German –königskrabbe, kamtschatkakrabbe), (Italian - granchio reale, grancevola del Kamciatka), (Spanish - cangrejo real rojo, cangrejo de Kamchatka), (Latin paralithodes camtschaticus).
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