Softshell Crab Season Has Arrived From Georgia!
The season's first catch of Wild Georgia Softshell Crab has arrived! They're making their West Coast debut at Water Grill.
THE START OF THE SEASON
Spring is a wonderful time. For starters, we get more daylight (and eventually recoup the hour of sleep lost at the start of Daylight Savings Time).
That means little to Mother Nature though: the world continues to turn, and tilt on its axis, bringing warmer weather to the Northern Hemisphere. It’s here, in the Mid-Atlantic, where we begin to reap those rewards. Watermen take to their boats off the coast of Georgia and the Chesapeake Bay and prepare their traps for the blue crab harvest.
As water temperatures rise, these blue crabs begin to molt and shed their shells. It’s at this moment when the live crabs are harvested – at the peak of tenderness.
Learn more about their journey – from blue shell to softshell, and from the country’s largest estuary to one of our favorite seasonal offerings – here.
ABOUT BLUE CRABS
Who says Latin is dead? The language tells us a lot. Exhibit A: the scientific name for blue crab is Callinectes sapidus, meaning beautiful savory swimmer.
These crabs propel themselves through the water using their back fins, or swimmerets. You’ll find this species all along the Atlantic Coast, down through the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, and even to some northern parts of South America.
HARVESTING
Blue Crabs live anywhere from three to four years and reach maturity around one year to 18 months. Growth is very dependent on temperature. Mating occurs from fall through the spring and, interestingly, females can only mate once during their life but can spawn multiple times.
Females, especially those carrying eggs, prefer higher salinity areas and often migrate towards the mouth of nearby rivers to spawn. Males prefer lower salinity waters and can often be found closer to river mouths and estuaries.
Most of the season’s harvesting will happen in late Spring as water temperatures warm and crabs prepare for their summer growth. This is often marked by the first full moon in May. In some cases, like what we’re seeing out of Georgia, the water warms as early as the beginning of April.
A COMING OF AGE
Softshell crabs are blue crabs. They’re harvested throughout the East Coast by commercial crabbers when the hardshell blue crabs are deemed to be peelers, or crabs that are ready to molt.
Watermen will look for signs, such as white, pink and red colors on the shells, to tell which crabs will molt, and when. In fact, a red outline, called a “red sign”, on the swimming fin indicates that a crab will molt in less than two days.
These crabs are then transferred to shedding tanks where they are monitored until they molt. The tanks are shallow, and the water temperature is carefully regulated to emulate the crab’s natural molting habitat.
Once a crab molts, it is removed from the shedding tank as soon as possible before the shell begins to harden (which can take as little as a few hours). It’s at this moment when a blue crab becomes a softshell crab. They’re then carefully packed and arrive to us daily – directly from pristine coastline of Georgia, straight to our restaurants.
this moment when a blue crab becomes a softshell crab. They’re then carefully packed and arrive to us daily – directly from the Chesapeake to our restaurants.
FLAVOR
Iconic, sweet and earthy, softshell crab delivers a crunchy, delicate bite with olive-like notes imparted from the shell.
At Water Grill, our Wild Georgia Softshell Crab is prepared tempura-fried, served with pickled plums, Belgian endive and our house XO sauce
All this softshell talk got you hungry for more? Check out our menus and make a reservation!
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Wild Santa Barbara Spot Prawn Season
Shrimp are found all over the world. From saltwater to freshwater, wild, farmed and frozen. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. The list goes on.
Prawns are generally found in freshwater environments.
Spot prawns; however, are not prawns. The Spot Prawn (Pandalus platyceros) is found exclusively in the Pacific Ocean, from the Gulf of Alaska down to Northern Baja California. Named after the paired spots located just behind the head, our California Spot Prawns hail from the Southern California Bight (a 430-mile stretch of curved coast from Point Conception, Calif. to Punta Colonet, Baja California Sur, Mexico), with main ports of entry at Santa Barbara, San Pedro and San Diego.
These shrimps are big, too. The largest in the Pacific, in fact. They can grow upwards of 12 inches (30.5 cm) but most are around 4 to 10 inches (12-27 cm) in length.
It’s in California where spot prawns were initially discovered in the 1930s, hanging out in octopus traps off the coast of Monterey. Today, they’re caught in pot traps to ensure careful handling and effective fisheries management (shoutout to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife).
Spot prawns dwell deep, inhabiting depths of 600 feet to 1,500 feet on soft and rocky bottoms.
LIFE CYCLE
The average life span for a spot prawn is around six years. It’s around year four or five when something magical happens: spot prawns start transitioning from male to female. Spot prawns start life as males, then they join the other team after their first spawn as males. They’re a true example of a hermaphrodite in the natural world, a protrandric hermaphrodite, if you want to get the scientific term spot-on.
Spot prawns spawn once a year, with each individual spot prawn mating once as a male and once or twice as a female. This typically occurs from October through January. That’s the reason spot prawn season is closed during that time.
UNBEATABLE FLAVOR
Spot prawns are a rarity and a delicacy. Careful handling is critical, as they must be enjoyed immediately after they decease. (There’s an enzyme in them that instantly begins decomposing the muscular structure, leading to a “mushy” texture when cooked if not handled properly.)
As finding and preparing spot prawns can be a little, well, spotty, it goes without saying that the best way to enjoy them is fresh from the water. At Water Grill, we fill our saltwater tanks with live spot prawns and prepare them to order, where you can get them as a tempura-fried Nigiri or as a Panca Tare-Marinated entrée.
Spot prawns are delicate and delicious. We may refer to them as delicate, but the firm texture makes them sweet and gives a “pop” of flavor every time you take a bite.
AT A GLANCE:
