On Food and Cooking

enzymes can also damage the surrounding
muscle. The dark, sometimes gritty “vein”
along the tail muscle is actually the end of the
digestive tube.
Crabs Crabs are tailless. Instead they have a
massive cephalothorax, whose musculature
enables these creatures to live in the deepest
sea, burrow on land, and climb trees. Most
crabs have one or two powerful claws for
holding, cutting, and crushing their prey. Crab
claw meat is flavorful but coarser and harder
to get at than the body meat, and generally not
as prized. Exceptions are the massive and
flavorsome single claws of the Florida stone
crab and European fiddler crab. The legs of
the north Pacific king crabs, which can span
4–6 ft/1.2–1.8 m, provide large cylinders of
meat that are often sold frozen.
Most commercial crabs (species of
Callinectes, Carcinus, Cancer, and others) are
still caught alive in baited traps or dredges.
They may be sold live, or cooked and whole,