Red Crabs -- A Culinary Adventure for Seafood Lovers

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On a bright, balmy day, a fishing trawler offloaded her catch of crabs at Hampton, Virginia. At first it seemed routine, then it became apparent the crabs that were being offloaded were bright red.

Watermen routinely harvest Chesapeake Bay blue crabs, and as they are taken from the water, they are most definitely not red. Raw Chesapeake Bay blue crabs are a kind of bluish grey until they are steamed, at which time they turn an orangey red. The crabs offloaded that day were a little larger than even the familiar big Jimmies (males) harvested in the Chesapeake Bay, and although appearing to have already been steamed, were wriggling and snapping and very much alive. That day’s remarkable catch was none other than live Atlantic deep-sea red crabs caught off the Atlantic coast from as far south as North Carolina to Nova Scotia in the north.

Unlike the tremendously popular Chesapeake Bay blue crab that lives in relatively shallow water, the Atlantic deep-sea red crab (Chaceon quinquedens) lives in cold deep water. It should not be confused with the Alaskan king crab, although it might be a distant cousin. The red crabs like to stay at about 38 degrees Fahrenheit all the time. The average red crab is about one to two pounds. That is a good-sized crab when you compare it to the popular Chesapeake Bay blue crab. The red crab has an orange-red color in the wild and has spindly legs. They are bigger than the blue crabs living in the Chesapeake Bay. The Atlantic deep-sea red crab does not have swimming paddles like the blue crab that is sometimes referred to as “the beautiful swimmer.” The red crab can reach a maximum weight of 3.75 pounds. Dissimilar to the blue crab that produces offspring in multiple years, the red crab produces offspring only once every two years. The red crab has a lifespan of up to 15 years, while blue crabs unusually do not live longer than three years.

It was lobstermen who started bringing up red crabs caught in their lobster traps in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1964, Andreas Holmsen, professor of resource economics at the University of Rhode Island, conducted the first study of the crustacean. Commercial fishing got started in the early 1970s. In a survey conducted in 1974, it was found that between offshore Maryland and eastern Georges Bank, the standing crop was an estimated 59 million pounds.

The red crab has been described as the “other big crab.” The red crab is one of several related species of crustaceans that live in various deep stretches of the Atlantic. Red crabs flank the edge of the continental shelf from Nova Scotia south to the Gulf of Mexico. Blue crabs are called swimming crabs because they can use their paddle-like rear legs to propel themselves through the water. Red crabs have no choice but to walk along the sea floor. Most live at greater depths than do the king crabs.

At the depths where red crabs live, there is little or no light to navigate, and water temperatures hover around 38 degrees. The red crabs scuttle across the ocean floor at depths from 600 feet to a mile deep. Often the red crabs must rely on food that sinks down from the surface. The carcasses of dead whales sometimes provide a kind of nutrition bonanza that the crabs can sniff out from long distances away.

You may have already eaten red crabs without realizing it. Some big seafood restaurants have featured them as part of their crab Alfredo. Red crabs are very popular with many Asians. Some 3,000 pounds of red crabs are shipped to Asia weekly in specially equipped airplanes with special tanks. At the Seafood Market in Hampton, Virginia, some Asians have been known to buy van-loads of red crabs.

Atlantic red crabs can live two to three weeks if held in properly aerated tanks in 38- to 48-degree water. On ice, their shelf life is three to four days before black spots start to appear on their bodies, something that doesn’t happen to blue crabs.

The Atlantic Deep Sea Red Crab Company, operated by John Williams, runs four specially equipped red crab harvesting boats. Three run out of New Bedford, Massachusetts, while the other, the Hannah Boden, has run out of Newport News. The Hannah Boden was featured in the reality TV show “Deadliest Catch,” where it braved eight-foot waves in the Bering Sea. The four boats fish deep-sea habitats off the coast of Maryland, New England and the Mid-Atlantic Bight. (The Mid-Atlantic Bight is a coastal region running from Massachusetts to North Carolina. It contains the New York Bight.)

The boats go out for about ten days at a time and are equipped with 600 four-foot-high traps that are round, in comparison to traps used for blue crabs. The crabs are hauled live into onboard tanks filled with 38-degree water. Once on shore, they are either processed immediately or held live in tanks. Williams said, “We’re the first fishery on the East Coast to be Marine Stewardship Council certified sustainable, separating us from the cheap imports from all over the world. There is no question that sustainability is the wave of our future.”

Essentially, the equipment used for harvesting red crabs is similar to that used for the king crabs. Crews drop lines of 150 traps similar to, but larger than, those used to catch blue crabs. The traps are placed on the ocean floor in roughly 2,000 feet of water, where the red crabs can crawl right in. Williams’ boats bring in an estimated three million pounds of red crabs every year, with a value of more than $3 million. Compared to the blue crab harvest in Maryland of about $50 million a year, red crabs are a minor but potential growing market.

Discerning diners can enjoy red crabs caught off the Virginia coast and served at the Graham and Rollins Seafood Restaurant at 509 Bassette Street in Hampton (757-250-2303, info@grahamandrollins.com). Red crabs are not always in season. Call to make sure red crabs are in stock before traveling to buy them.

The meat is somewhat sweeter, and there is more of it on a red crab, compared to a blue crab. Chefs experienced with red crabs say that cooking them differs from cooking blue crabs, which are typically steamed whole and picked clean once cooked. Atlantic red crabs, they say, are better if cleaned before being steamed. Because the bodies are bigger, steaming them whole tends to overcook the claw meat. However, some cooks recommend steaming them the same way you would blue crabs. Asian chefs prefer to split them, then grill them.

The one drawback presently is the much shorter shelf life of the red crab. Hopefully, new equipment presently under construction in Hampton will alleviate this problem and make marketing live red crabs much more practical. At the Atlantic Red Crab Company’s plant in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the fresh red crabs are sent either to the plant’s cooler, which is capable of holding 75,000 pounds of live crabs at 38 degrees until they are needed for processing, or directly to the processing line. For cooking, the crab sections are put into a large stainless steel container where they are cooked for 11 minutes at 212 degrees. The cooker holds two 328-pound containers at a time and can cook 3,000 pounds of crab per hour. Claws are cooked separately from “clusters,” which are the shoulder/leg sections. The cooking is carefully controlled by an alarm that sounds when the cooking is finished. The crab sections are then removed from the cooker and placed into a large ambient water tank for 15 minutes to bring the temperature of the cooked meat down to 75 degrees. Once cooled down, the crab sections are placed into a second large “chiller” tank where the meat is brought down to 32 degrees. This takes about 25 minutes. To maintain quality processing, each step is carefully monitored. Once cooked, the parts are sent to the various sections. Some go to the fresh line for processing/packaging, while others are sent to the brine tank for freezing into 40-pound cases of shoulder/leg sections. The product that is to be fresh-frozen goes to the brine tank and is held at zero degrees. In addition to brine freezing, the plant also has a nitrogen tunnel capable of flash-freezing crab products to minus 140 degrees in minutes.

Blue crab aficionados may find it hard to even try red crabs, but it is worth the effort. Red crabs have a similar, but more delicate taste than blue crabs and are a healthy, low-fat, high-protein, seafood that tastes a lot like lobster. Speaking from my own experience as an amateur cook and one who would rather eat crabs than filet mignon, the only drawback to red crabs is that they don’t travel well. Within a day or less they may develop brown spots. The conclusion seems to be that unless you buy them fresh and cook them the same day, fresh-frozen red crab sections are the way to go. Flash-frozen red crabs are being marketed by the Atlantic Red Crab Company. The best source for information about buying red crabs in Virginia is Johnny Graham, owner of Graham and Rollins Inc. in Hampton, Virginia. For that matter, Johnny Graham has an encyclopedic knowledge of a wide variety of seafoods available in Virginia. You might say he knows his crabs, red or blue. His seafood market and restaurant serves a delicious she-crab soup as well as a variety of seafoods. Graham is optimistic that soon red crabs will be a familiar sight at seafood markets all across Virginia and beyond.

For more information about red crabs visit www.atlanticredcrab.com.