[Sca-cooks] Re: [Sca-cooks]soft shell crabs

[Tara Sersen Boroson]

Anne sayeth:

> The one time I ate soft shell crab, I had a histaminic reaction. Not
> serious, but very annoying. Now, I know perfectly well it is the same
> animal. I avoided all crabs for quite a while afterwards, don't remember
> when or why I ate them again... but they don't bother me. I didn't have
> anything else that day I don't eat all the time, and this was a
> different reaction than I have ever had to anything else in my life.
>
> How can I possibly be allergic to an animal in one life-stage but not
> the rest of the time? Does it secrete a chemical, or have different
> hormones, or something? Not a major problem, soft shell crab has never
> exactly been hard to avoid... doesn't sneak up on you! But it doesn't
> make sense to me.


Interesting!  Well, with soft-shells, you're eating the whole critter,
including a lot of parts you wouldn't eat when picking a hard-shell.
For instance, many people avoid the "mustard," (the liver, as Master
Adamantius told us in another message.)  But you can't avoid it when
eating the bugger whole.  It could have been a reaction to something the
crab itself ate, or something it had been filtering through it's liver.
  Or to some compound in the "skin" that would become the shell, which,
obviously, we usually don't eat.

(Well, we often find bits of shell in poorly cleaned lump crabmeat,
especially crabcakes at restaurants.  I'm still trying to figure out a
polite way to remove sharp, hard bits of shell from my mouth in a nice
restaurant...)

-Magdalena