How to stretch a smaller crab haul
The drama plays out almost every November. As the local crab season approaches, commercial crab fishermen negotiate with distributors until they settle on a price.
Last year, the talks went on so long that crab didn’t make it into stores in time for Thanksgiving. But this year, a price was decided quickly, and on Wednesday boats splashed their gear — set their traps — as scheduled.
Even as local crab started to arrive in markets this weekend, prices could be high, because the catch is predicted to be smaller this year than in recent seasons because of natural cycles in the crab population.
“We’ve had some amazing big years the last couple of years. This will probably be the low year on production,” says Larry Collins of the San Francisco Community Fishing Association and the Crab Boat Owners Association.
The expected lower supply is one reason fishermen were able to negotiate a price of $3 a pound, up from $2.25 last year. The retail price is usually at least 1½ times the amount fishermen receive.
The season that started this week is for the Central Coast as far north as the Gualala River at the Mendocino County border. Fishermen from farther north could add to the competition if they decide to fish in local waters before the North Coast season opens in December. But it’s unlikely that too many will, Collins says, because the northern season is delayed because of small crab size, and fishermen can crab just in one region or are penalized.
“They can’t double dip,” Collins says. “If there’s a delayed opener, you have to pick which area you’re going to fish.”
No matter what happens this year, next season the new state crab trap limits go into effect and big boats from other areas won’t be able to swoop in and take a large portion of the local catch. Signed into law last year, the crab limits are something local fishermen, who use smaller boats, have been pushing for years.
“This is the last Wild West season,” Collins says.
As for preparing Dungeness crab, many local fishermen urge home cooks to keep things simple.
“All you need is to boil ’em in a pot and serve them with butter and sourdough,” says Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Associations in San Francisco. “I want to kill people who want to put it in the crab cakes. That’s when you use the crab from somewhere else, not Dungeness.”
“It’s almost like chicken-frying a salmon. It’d be the same sort of sacrilege.”
I agree, but after a few rounds of cracked crab, I’m ready to move on to pasta.
I usually don’t have the patience to remove all the meat from a crab for a sauce, so lately I have just been extracting the body meat and leaving the legs whole. I prepare a light and slightly spicy tomato sauce with lots of celery for freshness.
When the pasta is just about done, I toss the crab legs in the sauce for a few minutes on high heat to extract some of the flavor from the shells, and fold in the loose crab meat at the last minute to just warm through.
It’s an easy and delicious way to incorporate crab into pasta, and a fine way to feed four with just one crab. That could be a good call if prices are high this season. Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan