How do foreigners eat crabs?

Take this opportunity, let's talk about those things that Americans eat crabs. There was a rumor on the Internet that "Europeans and Americans don't eat crabs", and quoted the Bible as saying that westerners think that "all reptiles that walk on their bellies or four feet are disgusting and filthy". This is obviously incorrect. According to available data, in the distant times when the center of European civilization was located on the Mediterranean coast, the ancient Greeks and Romans recorded crabs as crustacean aquatic animals, but as food historian Andrew Dahlby said, "They don't seem to eat crabs yet." However, not long after the Romans ruled the island of Great Britain, they began to eat crabs. In the book British Diet: From the Stone Age to19th Century, historian Anne Wilson said: "The Romans who arrived in Britain fell in love with local seafood, so the British can buy seafood at good prices in the market, including crabs and lobsters caught offshore." During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, fishmongers began to move around trade associations. At this time, there are many kinds of seafood on the market, and eating crab meat has become the fashion of coastal people.

The rumor that Europeans and Americans don't eat crabs is broken in the face of sufficient evidence. They not only eat crabs, but also have a long tradition of eating crabs. Today, the United States has become one of the largest consumers of crabs in the world. So how do Americans usually eat crabs? We might as well go back to the seafood restaurant where Drysdale works mentioned above and start with their menu.

Crab cake

The most expensive appetizer on the menu is a "three-piece set" for two people: fried squid, scallops wrapped in bacon and crab patties. This last crab patty is the most common way to eat crab meat in America. 1660, Robert May, a British chef, recorded in detail the early practice of crab patties in his book Compromise T Cook: or the Art and Mystery of Cooking: "First, take crab meat out of crab legs and shells and cook it in boiling water. Then mix the crab meat with the broken bread, almond paste, nutmeg, salt, egg yolk, flour and butter. Secondly, mix wine vinegar and butter (or orange juice and nutmeg crumbs) with a little crab meat to make a sauce, heat it slightly and put it on a clean plate for later use. Third, fry the batter in hot oil, one spoonful at a time. Finally, put the fried crab patties on a plate with sauce, with peeled oranges and sprinkled with fried coriander. " Crab pie is made like this.

Compromise cooking: or the art and mystery of cooking.

1792, Richard Briggs published a cookbook called "The New Art of Cooking". The method of making crab cakes recorded in the book is almost the same as that of Robert May, except that some auxiliary materials are adjusted, such as adding pepper and mustard to the new method, and the method of making sauce is simpler than before. This book was first published in Philadelphia, so it is not difficult to speculate that the British who first arrived in the United States still kept the crab patties in the early colonial period. The practice of Briggs' record has been used until 1932, when Frederic Steve wrote Eat, Drink &; Happiness in Maryland: an anthology of a great tradition still follows the practice of a century and a half ago. However, in this book, Steve also recorded another method of making crab patties from Baltimore, Maryland. The most significant difference is that there is an extra glass of milk and a lot of whipped cream in the ingredients.

According to the new cooking art currently practiced.

Maryland, Eat, Drink and Play: A Collection of Great Traditions (Eat, Drink &; Happiness in Maryland: an anthology of a great tradition)

It may be because with the development of industrial revolution and commodity economy, especially the commercial application of pasteurization, the output and sales of canned milk and whipped cream soared from the end of 19 to before World War II, which became a part of the daily consumption of urban residents. During this period, milk and cream appeared in many foods, and crab patties were one of them. Crab patties have developed to this day, and the practices of various restaurants are similar, and there are many loyal fans everywhere. For centuries, this kind of crab meat food, which originated in Britain and was popular in the United States, has hardly changed, and has also experienced a process of gradual spread from east to west-first, it arrived in New England with British colonists, then spread to surrounding areas such as Maryland, and then spread to the south and west coast with the westward movement and the gold rush in the west.

In addition to crab patties as appetizers, Drysdale's restaurant also has a classic staple food of crab meat, which is Cioppino. If the stew in the northeast is a vegetarian hodgepodge, the seafood soup in Italy is a seafood hodgepodge. Italian seafood soup is usually based on thick tomato soup. Pour crab, shrimp, scallop, mussel, oyster, squid and fresh marine fish into the pot and stew until cooked but not old. Diners who like this dish generally love the rich flavor of the soup, which is also the difficulty in selecting ingredients and cooking. If you are not careful, the smell of tomatoes will have the side effect of usurping the role of master. Of course, other people who like this dish are concerned about its rich seafood categories, because a staple food can taste as many as six or seven kinds of seafood. No wonder this restaurant calls their Italian seafood soup "lazy Cioppino"!

In fact, this seafood staple food that looks like Italian food is an Italian-American cuisine that combines various Italian seafood soup practices, and this restaurant is located in the North Beach, the birthplace of this dish. /kloc-In the late 20th century, newly arrived Italian fishermen stewed different kinds of seafood in pots according to the traditional Italian method for convenience. Unexpectedly, such "fisherman's dishes" and "dock dishes" have now become the business cards of American seafood restaurants, and even been imitated and improved by some high-end restaurants. Also influenced by immigrants, crab Rangoon, another American dish made of crab meat, is much more common. It is just a jiaozi-shaped fried food made of crab meat, cheese, cream and chopped green onion. Interestingly, although the name of Fried Crab Horn contains the word "Yangon" and it is said to be inspired by a Burmese dish, this dish is regarded as a Chinese cuisine because it looks like jiaozi. More interestingly, it is said that this dish was originally invented by a Polynesian restaurant in the 1950s, which once reminded people of the hula dance in Hawaiian Tiki culture from the winding outline of fried crab horns.

For various reasons, it is not surprising that Americans stay away from crab roe, which is so popular in China. The best example of cultural conflict is the rumor that the US government will ban the sale of crab roe on the grounds that the content of toxic substances is too high. Such rumors caused a strong reaction from China people who love crabs. In American catering culture, crabs occupy a special position, and only crab meat as raw material can satisfy different types of dishes. It is difficult for us to see the shadow of crabs from crab cakes and crab dips, and it is also difficult to escape our traditional understanding of food. Perhaps China diners from different cultures will regard crab cakes such as potato cakes and creamy lasagna as fleeting things. Americans treat crabs, just like other ingredients, without aesthetic and cultural attributes. On the contrary, in China, there is an old saying about eating crabs: "In September, the navel is full of October tips, which is the day to drink chrysanthemum." It is said that eating crabs and enjoying chrysanthemums in September, eating female crabs with round navel in September and eating male crabs with pointed navel in October are all very happy Guang Chen. After generations of literati's life, they invented ways to eat crabs, such as brewing and washing crabs, and eating crabs became an interesting thing. In this way, eating is not the main purpose of eating crabs.