August 28, 2024 • 37 mins
These long-legged crustaceans are the largest on the commercial market. Anney and Lauren fathom the science, history, and politics of red king crabs.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Reach and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Vocal Bomb, and today we have an episode
for you about red king crabs and what an episode
it is.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Oh yeah, Was there any particular reason this was on
your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Nope. I was looking for a seafood related top I
was looking for a protein related topic and landed on
seafood and then landed right here because I was like, oh, yeah,
that's weird. That's a big old weird thing.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Sure, yes, which I did right at the top of
this as I was delving into research papers and stumbled
across some images. Look at these weird o's in their pods.
They formed pods underwater.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
They're like huge, and I'm going to going to talk
about that. Yeah, seafood episods, y'all. I like, never do
I say allowed to know one? Nope, As often as
while I'm doing the reading for seafood episodes, because I
run across pictures of these little buddies and for some reason,
(01:14):
king crabs are just really high on my note list.
I don't like them. I think they move weird. I
don't think they like me.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Oh well, that could be the problem.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, they're freaky. Their legs are too long.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
See, I love them, but they are freaky. I agree,
but I think I've skewed the different way. I both
think they're freaky and adore them. Funnily enough, speaking of
their legs being so long during the pandemic, like when
it was still really we're not going anywhere, We're staying
(01:53):
in all of that. Friend of the show, my co
host over on stuff I never told you. Samantha she
loves and I believe I told the story before. She
desperately wanted to catch crab at one time, and I
facilitated that experience for her, and she had nightmares about
catching crabs and it was the most silent, solemn dinner
(02:15):
I've ever been at, which says something, yeah, when we
ate those crabs. But I wanted to for her birthday
give her crab. But I I wasn't wanting to go
out to like seafood places they get it because of
the pandemic. So I found a place in Atlanta that
was ship it to you, and I got it. And
(02:40):
the picture was misleading, I will say, because I accidentally
purchased these huge red kinkrab legs that were like almost
three fourths the size of my leg. They were enormous,
and I had to transport them to her apartment.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I do not drive, So I'm in a lift with
these cloths sticking out of this bag, and the whole
time I'm thinking, I don't even know how we're going
to cook these cause they don't fit. They won't fit.
We made it work. It was delicious. A lot of
laughs were had at my expense, fairly, but again the
(03:23):
picture was misleading because they didn't look that big in
the image.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, it didn't look like they were going to be
like a foot to two feet long. No, yeah, they
looked pretty small.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
In fact, I showed people a picture and like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,
But that's my experience with readcake.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I I don't know if I've ever I'm positive that
I've had it like in a crab cake or something
like that, but I don't I've never cooked it myself,
and I'm not sure that i've ever ordered them like
a whole at a restaurant. So but see above you
They kind of freaked me out. So I'm like, yeah, no,
(04:04):
I've seen the alien franchise. Man, I don't want anything
to do with this.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, the crabs. They may come for you, Lauren, doesn't matter,
because I'm me and I've seen a lot of warm.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
The crabs are coming for all of us, evolutionarily speaking.
More on that later as well.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Oh that is true. That is true. I also want
to throw out here really quickly, very selfish snipe and
a plug request. Oh I might be going to Seattle soon,
which is well known for its seafood. Sure, so listeners,
please send any suggestions as you were from there, food
(04:51):
or activities, what have you. But yes, okay, see our
past episodes on other sea creatures, which usually are pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Uh huh yeah, perhaps especially blue crab or lobster and crawfish.
Those are two separate ones or imitation crab. I guess
sort of, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Well, I suppose that brings us to our question.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I guess so, I guess. So you got this lord,
thank you?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Red king crab? What is it?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Well, the red king crab is a type of saltwater
crustacean that we harvest mostly for the meat and its
legs and claws, which can get big. They are, in fact,
the largest commercially harvested type of crab or crap crab
in scare quotes because they're technically not true crabs. They're
in a different family. More on that later. But they
are large enough that like one or two of the
(05:56):
of their legs or claws usually contain enough meat to
constitute single serving, Like they can have around a pound.
That's half a kilo of meat per leg, per leg.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, it was a lot of those crabs. I got
her cementtha those legs exact. It was a lot of meat. Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So crustaceans have exoskeletons that that is the structural support
on the outside of their bodies instead of inside the
way that we do that or that I mean that
I do. I can't speak for you. That exoskeleton shell
is thick and stiff and spiny, and you cook them
shell on usually and then crack open each section of
(06:37):
the shell to get at the meat. That meat inside
is tender and sort of like delicately flaky, sweet and
rich and briny in flavor, and opaque white in the center,
with like a pinkish red coloration along the membrane where
it met the shell. You often eat it as the
main protein in a meal, warm or chilled straight from
the shell, perhaps with some melted butter and a lemon
(06:59):
wedge to like dip and or sprinkle over it, or
maybe with the creamy sauce to sort of play off
that richness, or maybe with the bright and spicy seasonings
to contrast. Though. It can also be incorporated into salads
or pastas or other dishes as well, or right processed
into foods like a crab cake. It's like, it's like
(07:19):
a really big crab. It's what imitation crab is basically
trying to be. It seems impossible. It seems like something
out of Willy Wonka's garden, just this huge, surreal, kind
of creepy and that's not just me thing that is
(07:40):
almost unbelievably sweet and tender and delicious.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Mm hmm. You got to face the horror, yeah, the
terror to get the sweetness within. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well, crustaceans more generally are the delicious, scuttling, gigantic insects
of the sea top side in the air. You know,
physics really puts a hamper on the size of anything
that has an exoskeleton because they're heavy and can quickly
get so heavy that they impede movement. But underwater, it's
not so much of a burden, and red kin crabs
(08:21):
are an excellent example of that. The whole animal can
weigh up to twenty four pounds that's nearly eleven kilos,
and have a leg span of about five feet, which
is about a meter and a half, which is as
tall as I am. Their bodies alone can be about
a foot across that's nearly thirty centimeters, and I am
(08:43):
personally offended by how large this is, Although that is
the male crabs. The female ones tend to be like
about half that size. Those exoskeletons are like reddish in color,
either like a warm brownish or like a cooler purplish red,
with the color concentrated across their upper shell and at
(09:05):
the end points of their legs and claws, then often
with creamy white coloration on their bellies and at their joints,
and the whole shell has these sharp short spines coming
off of it, like they're a walking cactus. They have
three pairs of legs that they walk on, and then
one pair of odd sized claws. One will be larger
(09:26):
for crushing prey and the other smaller for more delicate
manipulation of objects. Their fifth and rearmost set of legs
are smaller and specialized used for fertilizing and cleaning their eggs.
And yeah, they are not actually true crabs. King crabs
belong to a different family. They evolved from hermit crabs,
(09:47):
which is interesting because hermit crabs are asymmetrical so that
their body can fold up into a shell, but king
crabs look pretty symmetrical at first glance. There is still
asymmetry apparent in their abdomens, and this is one of
the examples that science points to when it says that
crustacean evolution tends to produce crab shaped animals, even in
(10:11):
not crabs. The classification and evolution hypothesis of all of
this has been hotly debated. I highly recommend looking into crabization.
That's not the science term carsonization.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I think. Yeah, I like cravization.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah yeah, But okay, they are not just born that
size and shape. Their life cycle goes a little bit
like this.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Male crabs will transfer sperm to the eggs of the
female crab lays and keeps up under her belly flap.
She has to molt in order to lay those eggs,
so the male crab will often kind of hitch on
and protect her during this whole process. A single female
crab may lay anywhere from fifty thousand to five hundred
thousand eggs per year. After fertilization, she'll brood them like
(11:10):
hold on to them in this little flap for about
a year, and then when the larva hatch, they'll look
like little brine shrimp and will just float around feeding
on plankton until they grow large enough to sync to
the bottom of the seafloor and metamorphosize into a crab shape.
From there, they form their hard shell around their body
by by taking in minerals in their diet, and when
(11:33):
their body gets too big, they molt the shell off
and start forming a new one. Although they are pretty
vulnerable when they're small, larger crabs don't have a lot
of predators because of that shell, unless it's another bigger
crab or something catches them while they're molting, or it's
something like really specialized to crack stuff open, like octopuses
(11:55):
or sea otters. As with lots of aquatic life, red
king crabs will eat anything they can find or catch
and crush with their business claw from like algae, and
worms when they're smaller, to clams and fish and sea
stars when they're bigger. They are a cold water animal
native to the stretch of the North American Pacific northwest
(12:20):
up through the Bering Sea like so like from British
Columbia up through the whole coast of Alaska, and through
the Aleutian Islands over along the coasts of Russia and
Ukraine down to Japan. They live in relatively shallow waters
when they're young, but can range out to hundreds of
feet into the depths when they're older, and adult crabs
(12:42):
do migrate back to shore for like molting and or
mating season in the winter, older juveniles do form pods
similar to schools of fish, probably for protection from predators,
and these pods can be mounds of tens of thousands
of crabs that form up to like rest with each other,
(13:04):
like snuggle up in a crab pile during the day,
and then they all spread out to feed at night.
They mostly come out at night. Mostly. It can live
upwards of twenty years.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, I recommend looking up pictures of this. It's pretty wild, fie.
You know, if I saw that when I was swimming,
I would be.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
That I can, oh, the amount of noping I would
do all right. In the US, their harvest is regulated
by Alaska and national standards to prevent overfishing and environmental damage.
The fishery targets the mail crabs, and you can tell
pretty easily because that flap on their belly is narrower
(13:56):
and more triangular than the lady crabs have and crabs
that are over a certain size and also not during
that mating molting season. The fishery uses net covered pots
to catch them, usually which are pretty environmentally friendly. Commercial
processors do generally boil the crab briefly before flash freezing
(14:16):
it and packaging it for shipping, so when you get
it from a grocery store and carry it in a
lift to your friend's house, you're usually really just like
reheating it gently, often by steaming or maybe roasting. And
the meat does separate pretty easily from the shells compared
to some other forms of crab because it is mostly
enclosed in that like reddish membrane that I was talking
(14:38):
about earlier. And yeah, you can eat them, however you
like eating crab?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Mm hmmmm, it's a skill, it can be.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
No certainly.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
A good punch of protein and micronutrients in there, low
in fats, so you know, maybe pair with a fat
which is delicious and a vegetable that isn't lemon or
butter to help fill you up and keep you going.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
All right, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yes. As of twenty twenty two, Alaskan red king crab
catches by commercial fishers totaled four point five million pounds,
a value of some forty three million dollars. Red king
crab is the second most valuable species in Alaskan fishery
(15:37):
after Sakye salmon. And that includes during like a twenty
year period when a lot of the industry there had crashed.
So yep, yep, still really valuable. There is a crab
Festival in Kodiak, Alaska, over Memorial Day weekend every year.
It started back in nineteen fifty eight and today includes
(15:58):
all kinds of things like an art show, pickleball and
ping pong tournaments, historical tours, a mile run in different
categories with different gear like rain boots or full rain gear. Yeah,
also parades. Kids can enter the shrimp parade. I love
that music, dance a sawdust pile where they put loose
(16:21):
change in a big pile of sawdust and let kids
dig for it.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
There's a rubber duck race and a fish toss wherein quote,
winners are those who can throw and catch from the
longest distance. The fish is supplied. Ooh yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Annie's eyes just lit up. She's like, I could toss
a fish. I could totally do this.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
The bitch is supplied. I'm in.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
It's like a five day event, and honestly it sounds
really awesome. So if anyone has ever been, please do
let us know.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Please.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah. There is also at least one King Crab Festival
in Norway, and that one includes a sauna sitting championship,
but I couldn't find out very much more about it
or this sauna sitting, So again we're depending on you.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Please. I won't be able to sleep if you do
not answer this question.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
What I imagine it's how long you consider in a sauna
before you're like, I do want to be in the sauna,
but you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It could be anything. It could be anything. It could
be anything. Also kind of comical in terms of like
how you cook crab.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yes, it's thematic, it's the medic.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, Well we do have some history
for you.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
We do, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank
you sponsored, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Okay. So the red king crab, yes, is native to
the northern Pacific Ocean. Their ancestors date back over one
hundred and fifty million years. Again this food show, I
couldn't find a lot of early history about humans eating
red king crab. And this could be because they aren't
(18:32):
the easiest to catch. For a handful of reasons. That
being said, people have been eating crustaceans like red king
crab since prehistoric times if they had access to them.
I just couldn't find any real proof for. But I
believe that it happened. It might have been pretty rare
because they are hard to catch. They like to live
(18:53):
in the deep. They do, they do, they do, perhaps
another reason they make you a little on edge.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Look, just because elder tours and king crabs both come
from the deep doesn't mean uh huh.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
So this episode did kind of shake out into commercialization
of red kin crab, especially in some specific places, starting
with Alaska. Alaska's red king crab industry solidified in the
nineteen thirties, which was a time when countries like Russia
and Japan had already put some pressure on the stock
(19:32):
of these crabs. The state's commercial industry really took off
in the nineteen sixties. It came at a price, though,
which we'll talk about more later, and by the end
of the decade, the nearby population was in decline.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, there are different segments of the Alaskan industry. You know,
Alaska's big, the coastline is big. The piece that took
off in the sixties was in Dutch Harbor. It peaked
in sixty six, and then as it went into decline, right,
more attention was turned to other areas.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Right. So, red king crab was introduced to the Barren
Sea in the nineteen sixties by scientists from the USSR
with the primary goal of creating a new commercial industry
in the area. And there's a lot of politics behind this.
There's a lot of reasoning why they wanted this to happen.
They wanted a whole new population of crab they could
(20:21):
get to.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, that the US could not get to because the
Barren see if you're unfamiliar with it, is that one
in like northern Europe, Eurasia. Yeah, rights rights.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So this population of crabs spread in Norwegian waters, slowly growing. However,
in nineteen seventy eight, the USSR and Norway agreed to
a ban on harvesting the red king crab in the
Barren Sea, which allowed the crab's numbers to increase even more.
I read in a few places that the red king
krab population is locally called Stalin's Red Army or Stalin's crabs.
(21:00):
Please listeners write and if that's true in Norway, when
fishers in the area started catching this crab, they had
no idea what this alien looking creature was. Yeah, there
you go, but they did know what was messing with
their equipment and catches of the profitable fish that they
were going for. However, once they got wind of the
(21:20):
money Alaska was making off of their crabbing industry, coupled
with diminishing cod population, folks started realizing like, oh, there's
some money to be made here. Yeah. The population of
the red king crab really exploded in the nineties and
two thousands in Norway enough so that in nineteen ninety
(21:40):
two the waters were abundant with them, leading to several
studies about the impact of these crabs on native sea life.
Fishers had already reported declines our shifts in populations like
cod and other whitefish. A lot of folks moved on
to different industries. I even found like an advertisement that
(22:02):
was very depressing in nature, that was like it's time
for us to throw in the fishing rods.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, those that didn't move on eventually started catching this crab,
which they did realize thanks some part too, Alaska was
pretty valuable over time. It went from a hated invasive
species to an important financial product. In Norway, those studies
are still ongoing about its environmental impacts. Oh yeah, their
(22:35):
commercial red king crab industry didn't really launch though until
two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah. By twenty nineteen, researchers estimated that the population the
bread king crab population there had reached just about its
peak sustainable population, and also that they had reached just
about peak harvest capacity. And yeah, there's concern, but it
will keep spreading and further invaghe nearby waters.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Oops. Yep, And there's been a lot of things they've
tried to put in place to keep them in a
certain area, but yeah, it's ongoing. Meanwhile, the important and
lucrative Alaskan industry of red king crab harvesting all but
collapsed in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah. Like, there was this peak harvest in the nineteen
eighty slash eighty one season. Landings included two hundred million
pounds of red king crab that year, but then by
three years after that, harvests were down sixtyfold.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Substantial. Yeah, So research was done, regulations were put in place,
with varying success.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
It's thought that warming water was favoring the growth of
some predators of the juvenile crabs, plus overfishing of the
adult population. Yeah, they started working on different things. In
the nineties. There was research into creating crab hatcheries for
farming crabs through their vulnerable youth stages, but it proved difficult,
(24:10):
partially because young juveniles are highly cannibalistic.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Oops.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Some of the more successful regulations include from what I understand,
include the Crab Savings Area of nineteen ninety six, which
is this habitat refuge created in the Eastern Bearing Sea
and the Crab Rationalization Program of two thousand and five,
which is a great name for something which implemented safety
and environmental and like community minded regulations so locals have
(24:41):
access to shares of the harvest and shares of investment
in the industry before anyone else does, which is cool.
And fishers will report their landings in real time back
to managers that are monitoring those live and they'll close
down the fishery when the area reaches its limit. It's
like the middle of a day. They'll be like, nope, boom,
(25:02):
we're out. Speaking of I guess in the midst of
all of this, the Discovery showed Deadliest Catch, which is
about Alaskan crabbers, debuted in two thousand and five, and
it is still going. I don't have television and I
had no idea it's still running it is. I think
it's twentieth season just aired starting in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Wow, that's something to think about. Well. Also in twenty
twenty three, Alaskan fishers were given the go ahead to
harvest red king crab in Bristol Bay for the first
time in two years, when the population numbers were deemed
acceptable for fishing, and there was a lot of articles
written about it.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, it was a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
It was a pretty big deal also something a lot
of articles were written about. In twenty twenty two, the
US and its allies placed sanctions on Russia after the
country's invasion of Ukraine, and that led to an expansion
of Norway's seafood markets. Instead of relying on Russia for
red kin krab, the US turned to Ukraine, among others Norway.
(26:10):
The war in Ukraine and climate change really bolstered Norway's
crab industry. And I read that weeks before the sanctions
went into effect, some importers were desperately stalking up on
frozen red kin crab. Some even said like, even if
it's from Russia, it can last two years frozen, so
(26:30):
maybe this will go away by Theftah. Yeah. Yeah. Russia
controlled ninety four percent of the market at that time. Yeah,
and some companies lost money to unscrupulous sellers. There was
at least one indictment of someone who was comically referred
to as a Florida man. I believe he was just
(26:53):
a man from Florida, but it made me laugh. But yeah,
it was a big deal and a big shift, and
still also ongoing and then climate change there as there
has been more research into these crabs. We've discussed before.
(27:14):
Some sea creatures like this are really difficult to track
or study because they live in the depths or you know.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
The six hundred feet under the ocean's surface, and they
and they do move around a lot. They can move
like up to like a mile a day.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
I think they can move.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, I get, I get.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
While you're frightened them them more, thank you. I don't
want to dismiss your fear. They are quite formidable. Yeah,
So they've been hard to study in a lot of ways,
so it's been a difficult thing for people to pin
down some of the things they want to pen down.
(27:55):
But one of the things they're looking into right now
is of course the impact of climate change on their
population and where they're located and how they behave. But
it's pretty new, it's pretty recent research. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, so I don't know, Red King Crab update someday.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. As always with these
a lot of our episodes, but often especially our sea
food episodes, a lot of new research coming out, and
a lot of it is very intense and dense and
(28:36):
for me, I'm like, oho, yeah, I'm so glad people
are doing this, but I'm also a little lost at sea.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah you're like, oops, I am not a marine biologist.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, that whole thing with the hermit, the whole hermit
crab evolutionary debate was really only worked out as of
about twenty seventeen or something like that. So right, it's
like this is all definitely ongoing.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yes, yes, so perhaps we will have an update. But
in the meantime, listeners, if you've been Jenny these festivals,
if you have any experiences with redkin crab, if you've
seen one of these pods, oh my, please please please.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
In the meanwhile, we do already have some listener mail
for you. But first we've got one more quick break
forward from our sponsors. Now we're back, Thank you, sponsors, Yes,
thank you, and we're back with I need you guys
(29:54):
to understand how many little little pinchure gestures Annie was
making right at our webcam.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, and then it dove towards you. Was like a
Zeno morph.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
It did exact face happened.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, excuse me, I don't want to get my terminology
in correct. The alien community will never forgive me, Oh,
don't want that. No, we don't want that. Marina wrote
a long time first time. I think I can pose
many mails in my head, but I think I never
(30:31):
actually send them. Mailer loved the podcast since food Stuff Days.
The Laruez episode finally prompted me to really write to you,
mainly because of your confusion about the asparagus section of
the book. We in Germany also count five hundred grams,
so around one pound per person as a serving. You
need much of it as it is the MBP in
(30:54):
most dishes in asparagus season, which is the sixth season
in Germany. And no I did not get the fifth.
I'm from the Ryland in western Germany, where Carnival is
the fifth season of the year. Also about the peeling,
the book seems to only think of white or violet
asparagus as quote real asparagus, and you have to peel those.
(31:18):
The outer layer is really tough and stringy. You can
use the peals to make an additional asparagus soup to
your main dish. We cook the peels in salted water,
strain it, season it with a bit of nutmeg, and
thickened through a white rue. When Americans think about asparagus.
They mainly think of the green woman, right, which I
don't peel either. If you're interested in the German asparagus craze,
(31:40):
d W has some great videos on YouTube about German culture,
like asparagus season, and links were included. Yeah, I yeah,
we If you remember, we have struggled to find other
asparagus other than green asparagus.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, I've had I have since we did that asparagus episode.
I have had white asparagus like in a restaurant a
couple of times.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
At least I've got some.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
But but yeah, no.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Jar, I haven't done it. I haven't cooked it yet.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, but it is mostly the green stuff here.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, yeah, and thank you for this information. We were
confused also that asparagus soup sounds really good. Oh yeah,
I just have to get around the peer. But I
do love that it is a whole season and people
get excited and it's on menus. We talked about that,
(32:40):
Oh sure, yeah in the asparagus episode.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah, in a similar way. I get very excited in
the like mid to late summer when it's peach season
here in Georgia and they have just peach salads on
like every menu and everything. I eat at least one
peach per day, probably at least two just per day
during that season.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So yeah, which I really like. I like when it's exciting,
when you're like, oh, here's the fresh, here's the thing,
the seasonal thing. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
E J wrote, thank you for confirming what I instinctively knew.
Hollow hollow did come from Kakagory. Sacrilegious as it is
to say is a Filipino born and raised in the Motherland.
But I am not the biggest fan of hollow hollow.
I'm firmly in the less is more camp, but the
esthetics of an all out fiesta slash birthday party in
a glass hollow hollow can't be beat. My hallow hollow
(33:37):
pick would be Raisins, which is a Filipino chain famous
for their more minimalist hollow hollow just saba banana and
caramelized sugar, makapuno sugar, milk and lechi flying. I hear
rumors that the milk is special or that the ice
itself has something in it milk coconut, but it is
really good, and most importantly, the leche fly is melt
(34:00):
in your mouth good at least the last time I
had it, which was many years ago. If your leche
flaw is going to be mediocre morkin to a jello,
then don't even bother. Interestingly enough, did you know that lecha,
the Spanish word for milk, is also used as a
curse word in the Philippines. Yes, it still means milk,
but I think because if you emphasize the check in
(34:22):
like a hard, spitting, dismissive way, it's very satisfying. Cha
is an expression of dismissal or annoyance in Filipino. But
I don't know which came first, the expression or the
introduction of lecha. If you want a higher end hollow hollow,
then the one at the Peninsula Hotel is a classic.
(34:42):
It doesn't do anything crazy with it, which is why
it's good. But why is it so expensive because you're
having it in the lobby of a five star hotel? Finally,
did you know that hollow hollow has come back to Japan?
The fourth ranked convenience store in Japan called Mini Stop,
has reintroduced hallowha to the Japanese market, essentially marketing it
(35:02):
as a kakagory with soft serve on top. The flavors
are definitely nothing like Filipino Hollow Hollow, but I love
them anyway. No gummy bears or popcorn here. I like
to explain to Japanese people that this is what happened
when Kakagory left Japan, lived in the Philippines for a
hundred years or so, and came back. My favorite is
when they take shaved frozen fruits and just top it
(35:24):
with soft serve. Their newest flavor is frozen watermelon shavings
with ice cream and a drizzle of watermelon syrup. My favorite, however,
might have to be frozen strawberries or white peach. Thank
you always for all the great work. Even this Filipino
learned something from your Hollow Hollow episode.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I love this. We got some recommendations, We've got some opinions,
a history of how it came back to Japan. What's
going on there?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah, we get we get some slight like like minor
minor kind of cusswords.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, yeah, I can't see how that would be satisfying.
I can see, but yeah, And honestly, I'm someone who
doesn't eat a lot of dessert anymore. But I'm in
my hot closet right now and all of this sounds right,
It sounds so refreshing.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Frozen shaved frozen fruits. I mean, I've I've had some,
I've had some ices that are probably that probably involves
some of that. But move oh like white peach and strawberry.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Oh my, heck, oh my gosh, I bet it's so nice. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Also, I appreciate your like stringent lacheflon standards.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yes, I do too, I do too. You know, we
love a good opinion here, good strong opinion. I love it. Well.
Thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can.
Our email is hello at sabrepod dot com.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie
Reach and.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Lauren Vocal Bomb, and today we have an episode
for you about red king crabs and what an episode
it is.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Oh yeah, Was there any particular reason this was on
your mind, Lauren?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Nope. I was looking for a seafood related top I
was looking for a protein related topic and landed on
seafood and then landed right here because I was like, oh, yeah,
that's weird. That's a big old weird thing.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
Sure, yes, which I did right at the top of
this as I was delving into research papers and stumbled
across some images. Look at these weird o's in their pods.
They formed pods underwater.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
They're like huge, and I'm going to going to talk
about that. Yeah, seafood episods, y'all. I like, never do
I say allowed to know one? Nope, As often as
while I'm doing the reading for seafood episodes, because I
run across pictures of these little buddies and for some reason,
(01:14):
king crabs are just really high on my note list.
I don't like them. I think they move weird. I
don't think they like me.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Oh well, that could be the problem.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, they're freaky. Their legs are too long.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
See, I love them, but they are freaky. I agree,
but I think I've skewed the different way. I both
think they're freaky and adore them. Funnily enough, speaking of
their legs being so long during the pandemic, like when
it was still really we're not going anywhere, We're staying
(01:53):
in all of that. Friend of the show, my co
host over on stuff I never told you. Samantha she
loves and I believe I told the story before. She
desperately wanted to catch crab at one time, and I
facilitated that experience for her, and she had nightmares about
catching crabs and it was the most silent, solemn dinner
(02:15):
I've ever been at, which says something, yeah, when we
ate those crabs. But I wanted to for her birthday
give her crab. But I I wasn't wanting to go
out to like seafood places they get it because of
the pandemic. So I found a place in Atlanta that
was ship it to you, and I got it. And
(02:40):
the picture was misleading, I will say, because I accidentally
purchased these huge red kinkrab legs that were like almost
three fourths the size of my leg. They were enormous,
and I had to transport them to her apartment.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I do not drive, So I'm in a lift with
these cloths sticking out of this bag, and the whole
time I'm thinking, I don't even know how we're going
to cook these cause they don't fit. They won't fit.
We made it work. It was delicious. A lot of
laughs were had at my expense, fairly, but again the
(03:23):
picture was misleading because they didn't look that big in
the image.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Yeah, it didn't look like they were going to be
like a foot to two feet long. No, yeah, they
looked pretty small.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
In fact, I showed people a picture and like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,
But that's my experience with readcake.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I I don't know if I've ever I'm positive that
I've had it like in a crab cake or something
like that, but I don't I've never cooked it myself,
and I'm not sure that i've ever ordered them like
a whole at a restaurant. So but see above you
They kind of freaked me out. So I'm like, yeah, no,
(04:04):
I've seen the alien franchise. Man, I don't want anything
to do with this.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Well, the crabs. They may come for you, Lauren, doesn't matter,
because I'm me and I've seen a lot of warm.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
The crabs are coming for all of us, evolutionarily speaking.
More on that later as well.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Oh that is true. That is true. I also want
to throw out here really quickly, very selfish snipe and
a plug request. Oh I might be going to Seattle soon,
which is well known for its seafood. Sure, so listeners,
please send any suggestions as you were from there, food
(04:51):
or activities, what have you. But yes, okay, see our
past episodes on other sea creatures, which usually are pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Uh huh yeah, perhaps especially blue crab or lobster and crawfish.
Those are two separate ones or imitation crab. I guess
sort of, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Well, I suppose that brings us to our question.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I guess so, I guess. So you got this lord,
thank you?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Red king crab? What is it?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Well, the red king crab is a type of saltwater
crustacean that we harvest mostly for the meat and its
legs and claws, which can get big. They are, in fact,
the largest commercially harvested type of crab or crap crab
in scare quotes because they're technically not true crabs. They're
in a different family. More on that later. But they
are large enough that like one or two of the
(05:56):
of their legs or claws usually contain enough meat to
constitute single serving, Like they can have around a pound.
That's half a kilo of meat per leg, per leg.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yeah, it was a lot of those crabs. I got
her cementtha those legs exact. It was a lot of meat. Okay.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So crustaceans have exoskeletons that that is the structural support
on the outside of their bodies instead of inside the
way that we do that or that I mean that
I do. I can't speak for you. That exoskeleton shell
is thick and stiff and spiny, and you cook them
shell on usually and then crack open each section of
(06:37):
the shell to get at the meat. That meat inside
is tender and sort of like delicately flaky, sweet and
rich and briny in flavor, and opaque white in the center,
with like a pinkish red coloration along the membrane where
it met the shell. You often eat it as the
main protein in a meal, warm or chilled straight from
the shell, perhaps with some melted butter and a lemon
(06:59):
wedge to like dip and or sprinkle over it, or
maybe with the creamy sauce to sort of play off
that richness, or maybe with the bright and spicy seasonings
to contrast. Though. It can also be incorporated into salads
or pastas or other dishes as well, or right processed
into foods like a crab cake. It's like, it's like
(07:19):
a really big crab. It's what imitation crab is basically
trying to be. It seems impossible. It seems like something
out of Willy Wonka's garden, just this huge, surreal, kind
of creepy and that's not just me thing that is
(07:40):
almost unbelievably sweet and tender and delicious.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Mm hmm. You got to face the horror, yeah, the
terror to get the sweetness within. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well, crustaceans more generally are the delicious, scuttling, gigantic insects
of the sea top side in the air. You know,
physics really puts a hamper on the size of anything
that has an exoskeleton because they're heavy and can quickly
get so heavy that they impede movement. But underwater, it's
not so much of a burden, and red kin crabs
(08:21):
are an excellent example of that. The whole animal can
weigh up to twenty four pounds that's nearly eleven kilos,
and have a leg span of about five feet, which
is about a meter and a half, which is as
tall as I am. Their bodies alone can be about
a foot across that's nearly thirty centimeters, and I am
(08:43):
personally offended by how large this is, Although that is
the male crabs. The female ones tend to be like
about half that size. Those exoskeletons are like reddish in color,
either like a warm brownish or like a cooler purplish red,
with the color concentrated across their upper shell and at
(09:05):
the end points of their legs and claws, then often
with creamy white coloration on their bellies and at their joints,
and the whole shell has these sharp short spines coming
off of it, like they're a walking cactus. They have
three pairs of legs that they walk on, and then
one pair of odd sized claws. One will be larger
(09:26):
for crushing prey and the other smaller for more delicate
manipulation of objects. Their fifth and rearmost set of legs
are smaller and specialized used for fertilizing and cleaning their eggs.
And yeah, they are not actually true crabs. King crabs
belong to a different family. They evolved from hermit crabs,
(09:47):
which is interesting because hermit crabs are asymmetrical so that
their body can fold up into a shell, but king
crabs look pretty symmetrical at first glance. There is still
asymmetry apparent in their abdomens, and this is one of
the examples that science points to when it says that
crustacean evolution tends to produce crab shaped animals, even in
(10:11):
not crabs. The classification and evolution hypothesis of all of
this has been hotly debated. I highly recommend looking into crabization.
That's not the science term carsonization.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I think. Yeah, I like cravization.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah yeah, But okay, they are not just born that
size and shape. Their life cycle goes a little bit
like this.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Male crabs will transfer sperm to the eggs of the
female crab lays and keeps up under her belly flap.
She has to molt in order to lay those eggs,
so the male crab will often kind of hitch on
and protect her during this whole process. A single female
crab may lay anywhere from fifty thousand to five hundred
thousand eggs per year. After fertilization, she'll brood them like
(11:10):
hold on to them in this little flap for about
a year, and then when the larva hatch, they'll look
like little brine shrimp and will just float around feeding
on plankton until they grow large enough to sync to
the bottom of the seafloor and metamorphosize into a crab shape.
From there, they form their hard shell around their body
by by taking in minerals in their diet, and when
(11:33):
their body gets too big, they molt the shell off
and start forming a new one. Although they are pretty
vulnerable when they're small, larger crabs don't have a lot
of predators because of that shell, unless it's another bigger
crab or something catches them while they're molting, or it's
something like really specialized to crack stuff open, like octopuses
(11:55):
or sea otters. As with lots of aquatic life, red
king crabs will eat anything they can find or catch
and crush with their business claw from like algae, and
worms when they're smaller, to clams and fish and sea
stars when they're bigger. They are a cold water animal
native to the stretch of the North American Pacific northwest
(12:20):
up through the Bering Sea like so like from British
Columbia up through the whole coast of Alaska, and through
the Aleutian Islands over along the coasts of Russia and
Ukraine down to Japan. They live in relatively shallow waters
when they're young, but can range out to hundreds of
feet into the depths when they're older, and adult crabs
(12:42):
do migrate back to shore for like molting and or
mating season in the winter, older juveniles do form pods
similar to schools of fish, probably for protection from predators,
and these pods can be mounds of tens of thousands
of crabs that form up to like rest with each other,
(13:04):
like snuggle up in a crab pile during the day,
and then they all spread out to feed at night.
They mostly come out at night. Mostly. It can live
upwards of twenty years.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Yeah, I recommend looking up pictures of this. It's pretty wild, fie.
You know, if I saw that when I was swimming,
I would be.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
That I can, oh, the amount of noping I would
do all right. In the US, their harvest is regulated
by Alaska and national standards to prevent overfishing and environmental damage.
The fishery targets the mail crabs, and you can tell
pretty easily because that flap on their belly is narrower
(13:56):
and more triangular than the lady crabs have and crabs
that are over a certain size and also not during
that mating molting season. The fishery uses net covered pots
to catch them, usually which are pretty environmentally friendly. Commercial
processors do generally boil the crab briefly before flash freezing
(14:16):
it and packaging it for shipping, so when you get
it from a grocery store and carry it in a
lift to your friend's house, you're usually really just like
reheating it gently, often by steaming or maybe roasting. And
the meat does separate pretty easily from the shells compared
to some other forms of crab because it is mostly
enclosed in that like reddish membrane that I was talking
(14:38):
about earlier. And yeah, you can eat them, however you
like eating crab?
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Mm hmmmm, it's a skill, it can be.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
No certainly.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Well what about the nutrition.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
A good punch of protein and micronutrients in there, low
in fats, so you know, maybe pair with a fat
which is delicious and a vegetable that isn't lemon or
butter to help fill you up and keep you going.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
All right, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yes. As of twenty twenty two, Alaskan red king crab
catches by commercial fishers totaled four point five million pounds,
a value of some forty three million dollars. Red king
crab is the second most valuable species in Alaskan fishery
(15:37):
after Sakye salmon. And that includes during like a twenty
year period when a lot of the industry there had crashed.
So yep, yep, still really valuable. There is a crab
Festival in Kodiak, Alaska, over Memorial Day weekend every year.
It started back in nineteen fifty eight and today includes
(15:58):
all kinds of things like an art show, pickleball and
ping pong tournaments, historical tours, a mile run in different
categories with different gear like rain boots or full rain gear. Yeah,
also parades. Kids can enter the shrimp parade. I love
that music, dance a sawdust pile where they put loose
(16:21):
change in a big pile of sawdust and let kids
dig for it.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
There's a rubber duck race and a fish toss wherein quote,
winners are those who can throw and catch from the
longest distance. The fish is supplied. Ooh yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Annie's eyes just lit up. She's like, I could toss
a fish. I could totally do this.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
The bitch is supplied. I'm in.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
It's like a five day event, and honestly it sounds
really awesome. So if anyone has ever been, please do
let us know.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Please.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeah. There is also at least one King Crab Festival
in Norway, and that one includes a sauna sitting championship,
but I couldn't find out very much more about it
or this sauna sitting, So again we're depending on you.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Please. I won't be able to sleep if you do
not answer this question.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
What I imagine it's how long you consider in a sauna
before you're like, I do want to be in the sauna,
but you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
It could be anything. It could be anything. It could
be anything. Also kind of comical in terms of like
how you cook crab.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yes, it's thematic, it's the medic.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, Well we do have some history
for you.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
We do, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank
you sponsored, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Okay. So the red king crab, yes, is native to
the northern Pacific Ocean. Their ancestors date back over one
hundred and fifty million years. Again this food show, I
couldn't find a lot of early history about humans eating
red king crab. And this could be because they aren't
(18:32):
the easiest to catch. For a handful of reasons. That
being said, people have been eating crustaceans like red king
crab since prehistoric times if they had access to them.
I just couldn't find any real proof for. But I
believe that it happened. It might have been pretty rare
because they are hard to catch. They like to live
(18:53):
in the deep. They do, they do, they do, perhaps
another reason they make you a little on edge.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Look, just because elder tours and king crabs both come
from the deep doesn't mean uh huh.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
So this episode did kind of shake out into commercialization
of red kin crab, especially in some specific places, starting
with Alaska. Alaska's red king crab industry solidified in the
nineteen thirties, which was a time when countries like Russia
and Japan had already put some pressure on the stock
(19:32):
of these crabs. The state's commercial industry really took off
in the nineteen sixties. It came at a price, though,
which we'll talk about more later, and by the end
of the decade, the nearby population was in decline.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Yeah, there are different segments of the Alaskan industry. You know,
Alaska's big, the coastline is big. The piece that took
off in the sixties was in Dutch Harbor. It peaked
in sixty six, and then as it went into decline, right,
more attention was turned to other areas.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Right. So, red king crab was introduced to the Barren
Sea in the nineteen sixties by scientists from the USSR
with the primary goal of creating a new commercial industry
in the area. And there's a lot of politics behind this.
There's a lot of reasoning why they wanted this to happen.
They wanted a whole new population of crab they could
(20:21):
get to.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Yeah, that the US could not get to because the
Barren see if you're unfamiliar with it, is that one
in like northern Europe, Eurasia. Yeah, rights rights.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So this population of crabs spread in Norwegian waters, slowly growing. However,
in nineteen seventy eight, the USSR and Norway agreed to
a ban on harvesting the red king crab in the
Barren Sea, which allowed the crab's numbers to increase even more.
I read in a few places that the red king
krab population is locally called Stalin's Red Army or Stalin's crabs.
(21:00):
Please listeners write and if that's true in Norway, when
fishers in the area started catching this crab, they had
no idea what this alien looking creature was. Yeah, there
you go, but they did know what was messing with
their equipment and catches of the profitable fish that they
were going for. However, once they got wind of the
(21:20):
money Alaska was making off of their crabbing industry, coupled
with diminishing cod population, folks started realizing like, oh, there's
some money to be made here. Yeah. The population of
the red king crab really exploded in the nineties and
two thousands in Norway enough so that in nineteen ninety
(21:40):
two the waters were abundant with them, leading to several
studies about the impact of these crabs on native sea life.
Fishers had already reported declines our shifts in populations like
cod and other whitefish. A lot of folks moved on
to different industries. I even found like an advertisement that
(22:02):
was very depressing in nature, that was like it's time
for us to throw in the fishing rods.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, those that didn't move on eventually started catching this crab,
which they did realize thanks some part too, Alaska was
pretty valuable over time. It went from a hated invasive
species to an important financial product. In Norway, those studies
are still ongoing about its environmental impacts. Oh yeah, their
(22:35):
commercial red king crab industry didn't really launch though until
two thousand and two.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah. By twenty nineteen, researchers estimated that the population the
bread king crab population there had reached just about its
peak sustainable population, and also that they had reached just
about peak harvest capacity. And yeah, there's concern, but it
will keep spreading and further invaghe nearby waters.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Oops. Yep, And there's been a lot of things they've
tried to put in place to keep them in a
certain area, but yeah, it's ongoing. Meanwhile, the important and
lucrative Alaskan industry of red king crab harvesting all but
collapsed in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Yeah. Like, there was this peak harvest in the nineteen
eighty slash eighty one season. Landings included two hundred million
pounds of red king crab that year, but then by
three years after that, harvests were down sixtyfold.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Substantial. Yeah, So research was done, regulations were put in place,
with varying success.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
It's thought that warming water was favoring the growth of
some predators of the juvenile crabs, plus overfishing of the
adult population. Yeah, they started working on different things. In
the nineties. There was research into creating crab hatcheries for
farming crabs through their vulnerable youth stages, but it proved difficult,
(24:10):
partially because young juveniles are highly cannibalistic.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Oops.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Some of the more successful regulations include from what I understand,
include the Crab Savings Area of nineteen ninety six, which
is this habitat refuge created in the Eastern Bearing Sea
and the Crab Rationalization Program of two thousand and five,
which is a great name for something which implemented safety
and environmental and like community minded regulations so locals have
(24:41):
access to shares of the harvest and shares of investment
in the industry before anyone else does, which is cool.
And fishers will report their landings in real time back
to managers that are monitoring those live and they'll close
down the fishery when the area reaches its limit. It's
like the middle of a day. They'll be like, nope, boom,
(25:02):
we're out. Speaking of I guess in the midst of
all of this, the Discovery showed Deadliest Catch, which is
about Alaskan crabbers, debuted in two thousand and five, and
it is still going. I don't have television and I
had no idea it's still running it is. I think
it's twentieth season just aired starting in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
Wow, that's something to think about. Well. Also in twenty
twenty three, Alaskan fishers were given the go ahead to
harvest red king crab in Bristol Bay for the first
time in two years, when the population numbers were deemed
acceptable for fishing, and there was a lot of articles
written about it.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, it was a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
It was a pretty big deal also something a lot
of articles were written about. In twenty twenty two, the
US and its allies placed sanctions on Russia after the
country's invasion of Ukraine, and that led to an expansion
of Norway's seafood markets. Instead of relying on Russia for
red kin krab, the US turned to Ukraine, among others Norway.
(26:10):
The war in Ukraine and climate change really bolstered Norway's
crab industry. And I read that weeks before the sanctions
went into effect, some importers were desperately stalking up on
frozen red kin crab. Some even said like, even if
it's from Russia, it can last two years frozen, so
(26:30):
maybe this will go away by Theftah. Yeah. Yeah. Russia
controlled ninety four percent of the market at that time. Yeah,
and some companies lost money to unscrupulous sellers. There was
at least one indictment of someone who was comically referred
to as a Florida man. I believe he was just
(26:53):
a man from Florida, but it made me laugh. But yeah,
it was a big deal and a big shift, and
still also ongoing and then climate change there as there
has been more research into these crabs. We've discussed before.
(27:14):
Some sea creatures like this are really difficult to track
or study because they live in the depths or you know.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
The six hundred feet under the ocean's surface, and they
and they do move around a lot. They can move
like up to like a mile a day.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
I think they can move.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, I get, I get.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
While you're frightened them them more, thank you. I don't
want to dismiss your fear. They are quite formidable. Yeah,
So they've been hard to study in a lot of ways,
so it's been a difficult thing for people to pin
down some of the things they want to pen down.
(27:55):
But one of the things they're looking into right now
is of course the impact of climate change on their
population and where they're located and how they behave. But
it's pretty new, it's pretty recent research. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Yeah, so I don't know, Red King Crab update someday.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. As always with these
a lot of our episodes, but often especially our sea
food episodes, a lot of new research coming out, and
a lot of it is very intense and dense and
(28:36):
for me, I'm like, oho, yeah, I'm so glad people
are doing this, but I'm also a little lost at sea.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Yeah you're like, oops, I am not a marine biologist.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, that whole thing with the hermit, the whole hermit
crab evolutionary debate was really only worked out as of
about twenty seventeen or something like that. So right, it's
like this is all definitely ongoing.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yes, yes, so perhaps we will have an update. But
in the meantime, listeners, if you've been Jenny these festivals,
if you have any experiences with redkin crab, if you've
seen one of these pods, oh my, please please please.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
In the meanwhile, we do already have some listener mail
for you. But first we've got one more quick break
forward from our sponsors. Now we're back, Thank you, sponsors, Yes,
thank you, and we're back with I need you guys
(29:54):
to understand how many little little pinchure gestures Annie was
making right at our webcam.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, and then it dove towards you. Was like a
Zeno morph.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
It did exact face happened.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Yeah, excuse me, I don't want to get my terminology
in correct. The alien community will never forgive me, Oh,
don't want that. No, we don't want that. Marina wrote
a long time first time. I think I can pose
many mails in my head, but I think I never
(30:31):
actually send them. Mailer loved the podcast since food Stuff Days.
The Laruez episode finally prompted me to really write to you,
mainly because of your confusion about the asparagus section of
the book. We in Germany also count five hundred grams,
so around one pound per person as a serving. You
need much of it as it is the MBP in
(30:54):
most dishes in asparagus season, which is the sixth season
in Germany. And no I did not get the fifth.
I'm from the Ryland in western Germany, where Carnival is
the fifth season of the year. Also about the peeling,
the book seems to only think of white or violet
asparagus as quote real asparagus, and you have to peel those.
(31:18):
The outer layer is really tough and stringy. You can
use the peals to make an additional asparagus soup to
your main dish. We cook the peels in salted water,
strain it, season it with a bit of nutmeg, and
thickened through a white rue. When Americans think about asparagus.
They mainly think of the green woman, right, which I
don't peel either. If you're interested in the German asparagus craze,
(31:40):
d W has some great videos on YouTube about German culture,
like asparagus season, and links were included. Yeah, I yeah,
we If you remember, we have struggled to find other
asparagus other than green asparagus.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, I've had I have since we did that asparagus episode.
I have had white asparagus like in a restaurant a
couple of times.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
At least I've got some.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
But but yeah, no.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Jar, I haven't done it. I haven't cooked it yet.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, but it is mostly the green stuff here.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Yeah, yeah, and thank you for this information. We were
confused also that asparagus soup sounds really good. Oh yeah,
I just have to get around the peer. But I
do love that it is a whole season and people
get excited and it's on menus. We talked about that,
(32:40):
Oh sure, yeah in the asparagus episode.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah, in a similar way. I get very excited in
the like mid to late summer when it's peach season
here in Georgia and they have just peach salads on
like every menu and everything. I eat at least one
peach per day, probably at least two just per day
during that season.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So yeah, which I really like. I like when it's exciting,
when you're like, oh, here's the fresh, here's the thing,
the seasonal thing. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
E J wrote, thank you for confirming what I instinctively knew.
Hollow hollow did come from Kakagory. Sacrilegious as it is
to say is a Filipino born and raised in the Motherland.
But I am not the biggest fan of hollow hollow.
I'm firmly in the less is more camp, but the
esthetics of an all out fiesta slash birthday party in
a glass hollow hollow can't be beat. My hallow hollow
(33:37):
pick would be Raisins, which is a Filipino chain famous
for their more minimalist hollow hollow just saba banana and
caramelized sugar, makapuno sugar, milk and lechi flying. I hear
rumors that the milk is special or that the ice
itself has something in it milk coconut, but it is
really good, and most importantly, the leche fly is melt
(34:00):
in your mouth good at least the last time I
had it, which was many years ago. If your leche
flaw is going to be mediocre morkin to a jello,
then don't even bother. Interestingly enough, did you know that lecha,
the Spanish word for milk, is also used as a
curse word in the Philippines. Yes, it still means milk,
but I think because if you emphasize the check in
(34:22):
like a hard, spitting, dismissive way, it's very satisfying. Cha
is an expression of dismissal or annoyance in Filipino. But
I don't know which came first, the expression or the
introduction of lecha. If you want a higher end hollow hollow,
then the one at the Peninsula Hotel is a classic.
(34:42):
It doesn't do anything crazy with it, which is why
it's good. But why is it so expensive because you're
having it in the lobby of a five star hotel? Finally,
did you know that hollow hollow has come back to Japan?
The fourth ranked convenience store in Japan called Mini Stop,
has reintroduced hallowha to the Japanese market, essentially marketing it
(35:02):
as a kakagory with soft serve on top. The flavors
are definitely nothing like Filipino Hollow Hollow, but I love
them anyway. No gummy bears or popcorn here. I like
to explain to Japanese people that this is what happened
when Kakagory left Japan, lived in the Philippines for a
hundred years or so, and came back. My favorite is
when they take shaved frozen fruits and just top it
(35:24):
with soft serve. Their newest flavor is frozen watermelon shavings
with ice cream and a drizzle of watermelon syrup. My favorite, however,
might have to be frozen strawberries or white peach. Thank
you always for all the great work. Even this Filipino
learned something from your Hollow Hollow episode.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
I love this. We got some recommendations, We've got some opinions,
a history of how it came back to Japan. What's
going on there?
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Yeah, we get we get some slight like like minor
minor kind of cusswords.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, yeah, I can't see how that would be satisfying.
I can see, but yeah, And honestly, I'm someone who
doesn't eat a lot of dessert anymore. But I'm in
my hot closet right now and all of this sounds right,
It sounds so refreshing.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Frozen shaved frozen fruits. I mean, I've I've had some,
I've had some ices that are probably that probably involves
some of that. But move oh like white peach and strawberry.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Oh my, heck, oh my gosh, I bet it's so nice. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Also, I appreciate your like stringent lacheflon standards.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Yes, I do too, I do too. You know, we
love a good opinion here, good strong opinion. I love it. Well.
Thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can.
Our email is hello at sabrepod dot com.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks
to you for listening, and we hope that lots more
good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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