The True Cost Of The Green Crab Invasion, And How Whiskey Can Help | True Cost | Business Insider

green crabs are being called the cockroaches of the sea that's because they're virtually indestructible for years they've been ravaging marine ecosystems everywhere from new england to the pacific northwest but that doesn't mean they're not delicious that's why a distiller in new hampshire is turning them into whiskey will robinson uses 80 pounds of green crab to make just one batch it has the funk of the crab but the spice prevents that from being harsh and chefs in new england are adding the invasive species to the menu i'm not going to make a crab ice cream yet but i may go that that far so what is the true cost of the green crab invasion and can we ever eat or drink enough of them to make a difference will's making his fourth batch of crab trapper for each one he buys roughly a thousand live crabs from a harvester on the new hampshire coast these guys i don't work with them without gloves will's been an environmentalist his whole life and loves pushing the boundaries of what can be added to whiskey part of this why it's made a big story is because of the ick factor in using crab in a spirit but i don't think i've had anybody taste it who is put off by the flavor at all he slowly simmers them for 20 minutes so the aromas don't cook off then he mixes the crab flavored stalk with the distillery's housemate spirit in a vacuum still that stays at a low temperature a lot of the flavor molecules and aroma molecules are very delicate so those would break down if we were to boil them in a regular still crab flavor alone isn't very appetizing so he adds a blend of eight different spices coriander mustard seed dill seed fresh bay leaf paprika allspice clove and cinnamon that's all combined with the distillery's base bourbon to form the final product i didn't drink while i was driving but i kept a small vial in my vehicle so that when i would pull up at a stop light i could smell and be like oh yeah no this definitely works will hopes his concoction will inspire others to get creative with green crabs they don't have a whole lot of meat however if we could create a soft shell crab market for them it would be huge because they have fantastic flavor and that's exactly what harvesters like mike macy are trying to do by catching and selling as many as he can see how we do today it's a good start mike used to teach marine science at a local high school now he catches green crabs for a living thanks to fisheries specialist gabby broad who came to speak to his class about green crabs we just talked a lot about the abundance of the resource and the quality of the product and it just got to the point where i said someone's got to give this a try mike had been following the species for years but this is the first season he's harvesting them commercially he's one of the few making a tiny dent in a huge population so how many of them are there as many stars as there are in the sky the exact number i can't tell you certainly enough to threaten maine's 890 million dollar fishing industry back in the 1800s these stowaways probably made their way to the us on trading ships coming from europe but no one really noticed until the 1930s when fishermen saw that green crabs were eating all the shellfish females can lay eggs up to twice a year and produce about 185 000 eggs at a time and they have no predators a pretty decent-sized green crab can eat up to 40 mussels a day or 40 soft shell clams a day and they can dig up to 8 inches from 1948 to 1958 soft shell clam production in maine fell by over 80 percent as green crabs became more and more rampant if you have too many of them it's not just your seafood that goes away it's a lot of your biodiversity and our marsh habitats like eelgrass meadows that green crabs damage when they burrow for shelter and dig for prey eelgrass is a plant that can help stabilize some sediment in the bottom of estuaries but more than that it's a fabulous nursery habitat for commercially important species new england's harsh winters used to keep crab numbers down but now scientists say warming waters due to climate change are giving them a chance to thrive while there haven't been any major recent studies it's clear they're still wreaking havoc everywhere from new england to washington in 2021 the lummi nation found more than 70 000 crabs in one 750 acre saltwater pond over just a few months it was roughly 30 times what they'd caught just a year earlier while there are national strategies in place to tackle other invasive species like asian carp there isn't one for green crabs but environmentalists and chefs are pushing hard to create a market for harvesting and cooking them and it's starting to catch on americans don't have a really broad palate for seafood so introducing a good but new concept in terms of a culinary ingredient takes a little bit of coaxing in places like venice soft shell green crabs or moleke are a delicacy gabby says the challenge in the us is getting people to understand that invasive doesn't mean inedible the problem is they're tough shells so the key is to catch them during the tiny window just before they shed their hard shell and grow a new one they're only going to be soft for i mean really paper thin soft for maybe 12 hours mike has 20 traps throughout this estuary baited with two small herrings each sometimes the seagulls pull the bait bags out one crate alone can catch 40 pounds of green crab overnight that's equivalent to about 400 crabs or enough for a couple hundred bottles of crab whiskey when they come up in the traps they are all going to be hard shells or very recently molted crabs that are of really no use to us except to be sold to the bait market those only go for about five cents each roughly 50 times less than what a restaurant worthy crab would bring in that's a freshly malted male freshly malted male and those are all missed opportunities from this spring but mike has a plan their molting season only lasts about two months males typically molt for may to july while females molt between august and early october they put the ones with the best chance of molting soon into crab condos this one on top being the much larger one is the molten crab and the soft shell and what's left behind is its discarded carapace this one's looking like a pretty good product it molted with all its legs and claws you can see it's kind of fresh and shiny on the bottom others that won't molt for another two to three weeks are stored in crates trapping is still happening at a pretty small scale but it could potentially work between 2010 and 2012 nearly 1 million crabs were removed from an estuary in nova scotia eelgrass habitats and soft shell clams slowly made a comeback just south in the coastal waters of maine the goal is the same there's no way that we'll ever be able to eradicate this species the idea is just to bring the population down to a dull roar and what better way to do that than by convincing people to eat them even though green crabs are one of the most common crab species here in new england it's pretty hard to find them on menus and you're not going to be able to go up to any old fish market and find a green crab mary parks founded greencrab.org in 2017 to showcase recipes that might encourage people to give them a try and remember how crabs lay 185 000 eggs at a time turns out they're pretty tasty if you cook them right you're just gonna take your nail and pop off this back of the carapace inside here might not look super appetizing to some but if you scoop with a spoon towards the back of the shell what you'll reveal is this beautiful bright orange row mary sautes the row for a few minutes with olive oil pepper and white wine then she combines it with sweet corn and garnishes the dish with dill basil one shallot and chili oil she often buys the crabs online in frozen three pound packs from wolf's fish 120 pounds of green crabs are delivered to the warehouse weekly the goal is to get these critters out of the water and onto plates everyone in the seafood industry is concerned about green crabs and there's a wonderful opportunity to use that abundance and make something delicious at alcove in boston the furlong bisque named after the late harvester mike furlong has been on the menu for about five years i got a small amount of them and i made the bisque and it just knocked me out my customers loved it saute them a little bit and then and this is the most important part is you want to just sort of break them open a little bit that's how the dish gets its deep flavor so you can make a bisque with blue crab or lobster but green crabs actually have exponentially more that dark roasty ocean flavor you really want once it's cooked the soup is blended pureed and strained this is the finished best hot see it nice and thick and creamy looking but there's no cream in it no dairy that is until it's garnished with a scoop of marscapone and then one of my favorite herbs to use for this is chervil it's one of the feene herbs they call it and that's it so far this is his only green crab inspired dish but he doesn't want to stop there they're an invasive species and they're delicious which is a twofer [Music] you

Channel: Business Insider

Views: 2,469,335

Keywords: Business Insider, Business News, true cost, green crab, crab, crab invasion, invasion, invasive, whiskey, marine, new england, Pacific Northwest, restaurants, environmentalist, bisques, chefs

Id: e5qaT7btWeU

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 07 2022