The Harder to Eat, the Better It Tastes

…it’s not coming out

…nya

I keep getting stuck on the same spot on this leg. If I yank it, the meat just tears

…you’re just yanking it, nya

But it won’t come out!

…it’s not about yanking, nya. See how the leg bends? Go with it, not against it.

The joint direction…

…pull the right way and it comes right off, nyan. Do it backwards and… well.

Oh (ﾟ∀ﾟ)! It came out!

…nya

Hey Miko, why does the meat stick to the shell so much? I’m getting like half of it at best

…because the shell is thick, nya?

I thought so too! But I looked it up and it’s something else entirely

…nya?

The reason it sticks — the muscle fibers are tightly bonded to the inside of the shell when the crab is really fresh. The more moisture, the more packed the meat, the less gap there is

…that means

Meat that won’t come out = fresh and delicious (≧∇≦)

…didn’t know that, nya

When you boil it, the heat makes the proteins contract and creates a little gap. But crab that isn’t packed full? Already has gaps from the start. Easier to eat, though — just not as good.

…the harder to get out, the better it tastes, nya

And I was complaining this whole time! (≧∇≦)

…you were, nya

Oh, and I found something even more surprising while looking stuff up

…nya

King crab isn’t actually a crab — it’s basically a hermit crab

…nya?

So it has 10 legs, but two of them are tiny and tucked inside the shell — you only ever see 8. And it can walk forward, not just sideways

…it walks forward, nya

And that’s probably why there’s no king crab miso. The organ’s just different — thin, not rich. Hairy crab miso and king crab miso aren’t the same thing at all

…didn’t know that, nya

Oh! And Miko, remember when we talked about squid and how the sweetness comes from glycine and alanine? You mentioned crab and shrimp have the same thing

…amino acids, nya. Dried out or packed into the meat — different methods, same sweetness, nya

One more thing — have you heard “eat the crab, not the gani”?

…no, nya

“Gani” means the gills. There’s fluffy white stuff inside the shell — it’s full of bacteria, gotta remove it before eating

…that fluffy white stuff on the hairy crab you’re eating right now

Huh

…you took it off, right, nya

…I ate one

…

j-just one though! That’s fine, right?

…take them off, nya

Actually wait, Miko — there’s one thing I still don’t get

…nya

If hard-to-eat crab is the good stuff, then crab sticks are… bad? Like, they made it easy on purpose — doesn’t that mean it’s the inferior version?

…that’s not what it means, nya

But “easy = low quality” is what we just figured out—

…kanikama isn’t a replacement for crab, nya

…what do you mean?

…people who can’t eat real crab can still get something close, nyan. It’s not fixing a flaw. It’s a different food, nya

…so real crab stays hard-to-eat, crab sticks stay easy, and they’re just two completely different things?

…nya

“It’s all about the angle” — you said that at the very start, and I thought it was just about crab legs

…it was about crab legs, nya