text | Zou Benguang
Shulu crab is called fat crab in the coastal area of Jinshan Port of Mouping. When talking about fat crabs, it is just to distinguish the freshwater crab in the river. The ditch is called river crab, the sea is called fat crab, and many people are called crab.
Stepping on a fat crab means moving barefootly in the water about one meter deep, and stepping on the crab hiding in the mud and sand. Then, pinching the crab with his hands and grab it out and putting it into the basket on his back.
This original crab catching method can be done by adults and children as long as they are not afraid of bleeding caused by the crab claws. The amount of harvest is three or five kilograms small, and the amount is about ten kilograms large. The important point is to see the tide and wind direction, and it must be located at the seawater area where the river enters the sea and after the low tide.
You should choose shallow sea area
To the west of our village, there is a river called Guanghe, and to the west there is a river called Hanhe. The upper reaches of the two rivers are both from Kunyu Mountain in the south. The two rivers reach the estuary and come together, forming a large tidal flat, and shallow water areas will appear after the sea water recedes.
The water quality in this area is turbid, the bottom layer is sandy and there is a layer of silt on it, so it is easiest to step on crabs. Then, when the dead fish and rotten shrimps flow to the mouth of the sea, they are floating to the shallow water area as soon as the tide rises, and crabs are greedy for rotten things, so they follow the tide and go to the sea when they encounter delicious food.
You have to hurry after the tide and before the tide, because when the tide is high, the crabs follow the tide and don’t care about drilling into the mud and sand. Sometimes the tide is retreating, and we are really anxious to wait, so we go down into the tide deep in the chest in advance, and we can feel the crabs rushing around in the water.
The two ends of the swift crab have pointed tips, like an awl, and will bleed when pierced when it is a person, and it will be unbearable to soak in the sea water.
So you have to wait patiently when stepping on crabs. When the tide recedes about one meter deep, some crabs in the water will change their minds and do not follow the tide back to the sea. Instead, they sink to the bottom of the water and drill into the surface of mud and sand, expose their mouths and eyes in the water. When encountering delicious food, they will use lightning to clamp the big mouth with double pliers to swallow it. Therefore, crabs can be fished with bait, but before leaving the water, you must use a long-handled net bag to fish up, otherwise it will escape once it is removed from the water.
Basic common sense must have
There is no skill in stepping on crabs, but you must have basic common sense. When stepping on the crab and pulling it up from the water, you should avoid the two big crab claws, just pinch the position between the back shell of the crab and the base of the navel, and then quickly throw it into the basket or net pocket after leaving the water. If the movement is a little slow, the crab will kick its legs desperately after it is out of the water, which is easy to escape.
It is especially important to be careful that the crabs pinched in the hands should not be allowed to be close to any part of the body. Once the crab catches the opportunity, it will extend its pliers at lightning speed and clamp it will never release once it is clamped. The only way is to squat in the water and let go of your hand, so it will run away immediately.
If you don’t let go in the water, it will increase the force of the pliers and clamp them hard. You can feel it constantly increasing the force one by one. As long as it is clamped, it will be bleed and leave purple pliers dents.
It is best to step on crabs before the afternoon to evening. If it is cloudy, it will be a little north wind, so it will be more crabs. If it is the early tide and the south wind blows, it will be difficult to step on the crabs and they are small.
The season for crabs is that the wheat turns yellow at the turn of spring and summer until the frost falls in late autumn. It is cold and the sea water is not cold. But the best season is white dew to cold dew . The crabs are not only fat but also very fresh.
Burn the fire by the sea and eat
In that era, poor and lower-middle peasants managed schools, and the school did not focus on academic performance. The old poor peasants directed teachers and students to repair heba , collect herbal materials, and regain harvest. Whenever there is a production activity on Sundays or near the beach, five or six of us made an appointment in advance and secretly ran to the sea to step on crabs.
These five or six students are usually close to each other, and one of them must be able to carry a match.
At that time, matches were supplied by tickets, and every family regarded matches as precious. It was difficult for children to get a few matches. There is a classmate in our class who not only often has matches, but also white-headed matches. This kind of match is called "foreign fire". It does not require a black-headed match that can only be used on the match box. Instead, it can be easily scratched on any hard object, even on iron or stone. So this classmate is very popular and almost always pulls him into the group. He didn't need to go into the water yet, he was only responsible for picking up dry branches and waiting for the fire.
roasted crabs is very simple. When a few people who went into the water stepped on four or five crabs, they waved to the people on the beach to start lighting the fire. After a while, when the open fire was burning and there was only a pile of charcoal fire left, the person who lit the fire greeted his companions in the sea: It's time to bake.
Put the newly chopped branches horizontally on the charcoal fire - the new branches will not burn open fire for a while - at this time, you can put the crabs with foam spitting on them and start roasting.
When placing crabs, cover (shell) facing down and navel facing up so that the roasted paste will not be exposed, and the crab meat is tender and particularly fresh.
The crabs just put on were roasted so hard that their legs were kicked. The kicked legs fell on the charcoal fire, and they became ripe. You can eat crab legs first. After a while, cream like tofu brain began to appear on the four sides of the crab cover. Remove the crab cover and then put the navel side down on the charcoal fire to continue roasting. When eating the paste inside the crab cover, use crab claws as chopsticks to clean up very cleanly. If it is a female crab, and the Gary has crab roe paste, it will be so fresh! It's hard to describe that special taste.
After eating the fat in the crab cap, the whole crab was cooked. It was blasting the white soup, breaking it apart while it was hot, holding half of it in one hand, and chewing it in big mouthfuls. You eat it, please be sure. While eating, put it on the charcoal fire until you are full.
The roasted crab meat tastes different from the sausage. Not only is it fresh, the crab meat is almost dried up, the meat is a little bit rich, and the umami flavor is also concentrated in the meat. It is a bit salty and choking - saying "It's so fresh that it can fall to the ground" is not an exaggeration.
Some companions cannot enjoy this blessing and say they cannot eat while it is hot and have to wait until it is cold before they can eat it. He said, "It's so hot that I'm so dizzy." The roasted crabs are not only fresh, but also have a strong fragrance, and are mixed with fresh fragrance and have a great flavor.
It takes a price to eat crabs and roast them. Not only are they easy to get pinched when stepping on them, but once the teacher knows that they will be criticized at the least, and at the worst, they will be punished at the worst. But we couldn't resist the temptation of roasted crab flavor, so we couldn't help but run into the sea.
Of course, this is something that happened many years ago, and it has been gone long ago. But now when you see crabs, you will remember the past when you stomp crabs in the sea and eat them, especially the unique and fresh taste, which has not been forgotten for so many years.
