I woke up feeling a bit crabby this morning. Not in a bad mood, but just slightly other worldly after a night of brilliant dreams with an abrupt jerk back to reality. As I lay in bed trying to hold on to my fleeing sleep, all I could think of was Shanghai in Autumn. You see, that's when Eriocher sinensis, popularly known as the Shanghai Hairy Crab, Chinese Mitten Crab, or Da Zha Xie, is in season.

Hairy crab is a succulent delicacy whose arrival each fall is celebrated with several months of dining pleasure. For hundreds of years there have been these feasts with poetry, drinking, and dining on the Hairy Crab. Luckily, two years ago I was in Shanghai in early fall and had my fill of the tasty little crustaceans.

I always do my gustatory research before heading out on my travels. Most of the time I end up discovering new gems to dine in, but this time I was on a mission. I had to eat at the Central Hotel famed for their Wang Bao He Crab Feast each fall. I had no reservations and of course we were told that no seats were available. I had been chatting with some folks from the US Embassy earlier that day. Thinking quickly I came up with a story about the embassy making reservations for us and asked them to check their book. This was a dining emergency and I wasn't going to get turned away no matter what I had to do. One of my traveling companions, Valerie, a very tall, pretty, blonde, marine biologist, batted her eyes at the host for a bit while we were asked to wait near the entrance. Valerie is also a competitive ballroom dancer and when she wants to be noticed, by damn she is noticed. The host kept sneaking looks at us and looking through their reservation book.

A few minutes later some of my other friends joined us and luckily one of them, a professor specializing in Chinese history, spoke perfect Chinese. She "confirmed" my story and we were immediately seated. I am still not sure if they believed us, but having a tiny red-haired Jewish woman from Boston chat rapidly in Chinese sure helped the situation. It was so weird to hear her talk in perfectly accented Chinese and the switch back to her Jewish/Boston version of English.

So we sat down to two hours of getting crabby. It was a multi-course meal and we asked for the works. We started off with steamed female crabs full of tasty roe, then moved on to assorted crab dumplings, stuffed crabs, crab cakes, several soups, braised soft shell turtle in an amazing brown sauce stuffed with crab, and a few other dishes. Along the way we were joined by a few more friends who had managed to find us, and so we just kept on ordering more food. Finally we were way past full but the crabs kept beckoning so we had a final course of two more steamed crabs each. This was all washed down with several delightful teas and a very interesting, warm, Wang Baohe Banquet wine; a nicely oxidized style of rice wine, dry and tawny brown colored with a rich toasty caramel flavor. It was my second crab feast of a four month voyage by ship around the world, and will always be one of my favorite dining memories. I could still taste the delicate crabs as I closed my eyes and drifted in and out of sleep.

If you ever happen to be in Shanghai, China from late September to early winter make sure you try some Hairy Crab. They are really tasty and if you can, go to a crab feast and make an evening out of it. For crab fans it's well worth it.

For you folks who like food science. Hairy crabs spend the first four to five years of their lives living in fresh water. Then as they mature they seek out brackish tidal water estuaries by the sea to become fully adult and mate. Then the females go out to sea until the spring when they come back to the estuaries and lay their eggs. When the eggs hatch the immature crab larvae slowly make their way back to the fresh water hiding places until it's their turn to journey back to the sea a handful of years later. There are different grades of the crabs and the ones from the lake region, most especially those from Yangcheng Lake in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province; are considered the best. They are so highly sought after that they are often stolen, and that many from lesser regions are sold as the real Yangcheng Lake article, at much higher prices than they should. The Chinese government has even tried laser etching and other means to mark the highest quality crabs, but counterfeiters keep managing to forge new markings and credentials for the costly crawling critters.