“Yeah in the summer of course they can go and catch them at the beach,” Ryder said. But Ryder, who holds a leadership role within the Cambodian community, said there is unmet demand during the winter months, when amateur harvesting is less popular.Ĭucumber salad garnished with pickled green crab (left) and salty crab salad (right) are two Cambodian dishes that utilize green crab. “So I was so excited that, you know, something that’s similar to my crab, similar to Cambodian crabs, and I have not had it for a long time,” Ou said.įor now, Ou said she gets her green crabs from friends who harvest their own. Speaking in Khmer while her friend Theary Ryder interprets, Ou said the crabs taste just like to the ones she used to eat in Cambodia - a welcome reminder of home. Ou said the first time she tried green crab was after picking up a bag of them at the Cambodian new year celebration. Recently, Ou was at her friend’s house in Gorham, using a mortar and pestle to mix homemade fermented green crab with garlic and chilis as a garnish for a cucumber salad. “We just haven’t been asking, and we haven’t been listening.”Ĭhong’s vision for a more robust commercial green crab market in Maine depends in part on buy-in from people like Sokhuon Ou, an elder in the southern Maine Cambodian community. Credit: Ari Snider / Maine Publicįor now, Chong said Maine seafood harvesters are missing out on new customers by not paying more attention to what immigrant communities want to eat. Ou says she sources green crabs from Cambodian community members who harvest them. Sokhuon Ou pauses while preparing a cucumber salad garnished with fermented green crab. The plan was to distribute crabs by the bagful at the Cambodian new year celebration at the Buddhist temple in Buxton - not as bait, but as food. Then, this spring, the Maine State Chamber of Commerce called with a curious offer - they wanted to buy 1,250 pounds of hard-shell green crab at $1 a pound, nearly twice what Masi was getting from the bait supplier. The only consistent buyer he’s found for hard-shell crab, the vast majority of his catch, is a bait supplier in Rhode Island. Currently, he sells soft shell green crabs to about half a dozen restaurants. “When I look at it big picture, what we have to figure out is how to best utilize every part of this ridiculously abundant resource,” he said.īut Masi said buyers are less abundant. While green crabs are damaging Maine’s shellfish industry, harvesters like Masi are trying to figure out if the crabs themselves could become a commercially viable species. That’s bad news for soft-shell clams, a major food source for the crabs. Cold winters used to keep them in check, but their population has grown as the Gulf of Maine warms faster than almost any other part of the ocean. Green crabs have been present in Maine waters for over a century.
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