Liangzi Lake Mitten Crabs 梁子湖螃蟹

Where it comes from

Liangzi Lake lies in south-eastern Hubei on the south bank of the middle Yangtze. Chinese Wikipedia lists it among China's ten largest freshwater lakes and as the second-largest lake in Hubei; its western part is administered by Wuhan's Jiangxia District (江夏区) and its eastern part by Ezhou's Liangzihu District.

Crab farming here has been rebuilt rather than carried on without a break. Hubei Daily Net (荆楚网) reported in 2021 that after the Hubei Lake Protection Regulations took effect on 1 October 2012, enclosures were removed from all 32 lakes in Liangzihu District and the crab-farming water area fell almost to nothing. The trade then stayed quiet for about ten years; in the years right after 2012 only around 500 mu (亩) were farmed each year. By 2021 the district's crab water had grown back to about 4,600 mu, and crabs "raised on Liangzi Lake water", as the paper put it, were back on the market.

How the crabs are raised

The paper names the largest crab farm in Ezhou, a cooperative at Dongjing Village (东井村) in Zhaoshan Town (沼山镇) that works more than 2,000 mu of diked water (外圩) on Liangzi Lake. Its chairman describes an ecological method: water plants are grown in the ponds and snails are raised there, giving the crabs shelter and natural food. The ponds draw large numbers of water birds, which eat many crabs while they are moulting.

The technical chief of a crab-seed base on the lake told the paper that, for lack of suitable breeding conditions, Hubei's crab seed has long been brought in from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and that the base raises early-bred young crabs in its own greenhouses so that they adapt to the Liangzi Lake climate and water.

Flavour and size

The cooperative's chairman describes the lake-raised crabs as full of roe and fat with fresh, tasty flesh. Of two females he pulled from a bucket for the reporter, the larger weighed more than five liang (两, 50-gram units) and the smaller more than three and a half liang. The district plans to sell crabs of at least three liang.

Season and shipping

The report quotes the saying "秋风起，蟹脚痒；菊花开，闻蟹来" (when the autumn wind rises, the crabs' legs itch; when the chrysanthemums open, the crabs arrive). The technical chief of the seed base says Liangzi Lake crabs come to market at least half a month later than those of Yangcheng Lake (阳澄湖). The cooperative ties and labels its crabs and sends them by express to customers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities.

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