This grabbed my attention a couple of days ago, as I was idly flicking through my local delivery app.
It wasn’t the 王螃蟹 (wáng páng xiè) king crab that surprised me – I’ve long known they are available in China. It was the price listed. ¥9,999! I know king crabs don'’t come cheap but the most expensive I’ve previously seen were around ¥2,000 / $275 USD. ¥9,999 is $1,372.86. Then it twigged and I read the description. Nothing to do with king crabs, at all.
The delivery app insists on the listings only containing items for sale (a no spam policy) but occasionally some companies get round that by advertising something they don’t stock at a ludicrous price to stop any idiot actually ordering it while getting their real point across in the description.
The “description” in this case consists of information on the Chinese weighing conventions, which I think everyone knows anyway. We sensibly use metric, but mixed in with some old Chinese names. So, for example 500 grams can be described as such or as a 斤 (jīn). This used to be a variable weight depending on location but has now been standardised at 500 g throughout Mainland China. 1 kg is a 公斤 (gōng jīn), which confusingly literally means ‘common jin’ which it isn’t; jīn without its gong is the one I see most often!
Anyway, back to king crab of whatever weight. These creatures, which aren’t true crabs*, like to hang out in very cold waters. Those in America tend, I’m lead to believe, to be caught mostly in Alaskan waters but some from Argentina. (?) Those here are always from Russian waters except for once when I saw one from Chile. It was the most expensive I've seen. I suppose because of distance.
Although I can’t buy them whole locally, I can for delivery from further afield in northern China, suitably nearer to Russia! Those are usually around the $80 - $140 mark, depending on size, However, frozen king crab legs are available in supermarkets. These come from Russia, too. A 500g box can be between $30 and $50, again depending on size.
* The only thing carcinologists agree on is that they aren’t true crabs (the Brachyura family). Some believe they are related to hermit crabs; others determinedly disagree. I don’t care.
