Crab
It is a wise provision of nature that crabs and lobsters should come into season when oysters and mussels go out. They are in perfection from April to October. There is a difference between the male and the female crab. The female has smaller claws and a wider flap of tail. Those who like the claws best, therefore, give their preference to the male. But the female makes up for the smallness of her claws by the largeness of her liver and the creamy fat which surrounds it. The liver is the soft yellow substance which fills the body of the crab. Those who enjoy liver, therefore, prefer the female.
Cold Crab. Pick out all the meat from the claws and the breastplate, and shred it. Reserve a little of this, but mix the chief part of it with the liver and cream of the back, with vinegar, mustard, cayenne and salt. Put it back in the shell-the substance of two crabs may indeed be heaped on one shell-and strew over it the meat of the claws which has been reserved.
Hot Crab. The same as the foregoing, only that breadcrumbs are added (one-fourth to three-fourths of crab) and with them little pieces of butter or else some oil. To be thoroughly heated in the oven.
This is dressed crab, cold and hot, written for a kitchen that took cooked crab as a starting point. The entry never tells you to boil the crab, so begin with a whole cooked crab from the fishmonger, or boil your own before you start picking.
- "Liver and cream of the back"This is the brown meat -- the hepatopancreas and the soft creamy fat lining the carapace. It is the flavour of the dish, not a by-product, and it should be scraped out with a small spoon and worked smooth before the white meat goes in.
- What to discardThe feathery grey gills (the "dead men's fingers"), the stomach sac behind the eyes, and the papery membranes in the claws all come out. They are unpleasant rather than dangerous, but the dish depends on their absence.
- Brown meat in quantityCrab brown meat concentrates cadmium, so it is not something to eat in large portions often, particularly for children or in pregnancy. A dressed crab or two is unremarkable; a habit of it is worth knowing about.
- Seasoning, unmeasuredThe vinegar, mustard, cayenne and salt are left to the cook. For the brown meat of two medium crabs, start with a teaspoon of English mustard, two teaspoons of vinegar, a pinch of cayenne, and salt to taste, then adjust -- the brown meat varies enormously in richness.
- The breadcrumb ratio"One-fourth to three-fourths of crab" appears to mean one part crumbs to three parts crab; the original specifies no unit. Use dry, fine crumbs; fresh soft crumbs turn the mixture pasty.
- Oven for the hot versionThe recipe gives only "thoroughly heated in the oven," with no temperature or time. A modern equivalent is a hot oven for roughly 15 to 20 minutes, until the top is browned and the centre hot through. The crab is already cooked, so the aim is browning, not further cooking.
- Serving vesselThe scrubbed upper shell is the traditional dish, and the note that two crabs will fill one shell is sound -- a single medium crab yields a thin, mean filling. Scrub and dry the shell well; trim the ragged lip if it will not sit flat.
- YieldTwo crabs heaped on one shell serves two as a first course, or one as a light main with brown bread and butter.
- On the seasonThe April to October window is broadly consistent with modern brown crab seasons, though the reason given here -- that crab arrives as oysters leave -- reflects a fishery calendar rather than any provision of nature.
Kettner's Book of the Table (1877) was published anonymously and is attributed to the journalist E. S. Dallas; it was named for Auguste Kettner's Soho restaurant, and its entries are arranged alphabetically as reference notes rather than as a cook's sequence -- hence the digression on male versus female crabs before any instruction appears. Dressed crab, served cold in its own shell, was a familiar item of English cold tables and supper trays in the nineteenth century, and the hot version with crumbs and butter browned in the oven is essentially the same preparation adapted for a warm course. The book's assumption that the reader already has a boiled crab to hand is consistent with a period in which shellfish often reached the household kitchen ready-cooked from the fishmonger.