King crab’s flavor in Tuy Phong

Fit for the King

As the south wind starts blowing, the king crab season reaches its peak. During these months, both male and female king crabs carry heavy bellies with full of eggs. The fact is that king crabs are only the types of crab that live up to their name. The red crab was renamed “Huynh De” instead of “Hoang De” which means King in Vietnamese” because of the best finest tasting crab offered for the Kings at that time.

According to senior fisherman Tran Van Hue in Lien Huong, the king crab has been special food for a long time, but the crab is now increasingly rare. Formerly, king crabs used to be abundant in number in Tuy Phong’s waters.

At that time, the fishermen peddled the crabs to all the corners of village for sale in some places. Based on fishermen’s experience, Tuy Phong’s waters has many species of such crab because the seabed is full of yellow sand and clean water, that is a suitable habitat for the king crab.

In comparison with other species of crab, king crab is much wiser and knows how to camouflage. Thanks to its special shape (the shell with numerous beards, the back full of thorns, pincers and short legs), the king crab can easily conceal itself and merge into the reef to hunt preys and avoid its rivals. Therefore, it is so hard for a skilled fisher to catch a king crab. It requires the fishers to be clever, experienced and high patient enough when hunting for king crabs. The usual tools to catch the animal are net and hat-shaped traps with baits.

This season, the off-shore fishing boats often start returning home at the end of the day with full of big and fresh king crabs on board. The fishers are required to keep the crabs alive for high quality and delicious flavor.

Well-merited reputation

As the local tourism season goes to the peak, tourists come here not only to visit Co Thach pagoda, but also sightsee wild landscape and enjoy seafood specialties. If walking around some seafood markets on those days, visitors can find out a variety of fresh seafood like: scallops, oysters, clams, sea crabs, shell-fishes, squids and especially the celebrated crab of the King. King crab’s price is not very expensive, just at about VND 450 to 500,000 per kg (3 to 4 crabs).

The king crab’s flesh is very delicious, nutritious and ranked as the first-grade seafood species. There are many dishes processed from king crabs that can enhance vitality for men and fortify strength for women, especially women who are nursing young child.

Don’t miss to try king crab or King of crabs whenever you have chances to visit Tuy Phong!

My Thien (Source: Binh Thuan Newspaper)