A hair's breadth from utopia

I was still trying to resolve my feelings about the three hairy crabs I’d eaten for lunch – ridiculously rich and sumptuous, yes, but a questionable return on investment given all the cracking and digging involved – when we arrived at the Slender West Lake. 

Just as the thin-shelled crabs compete with their more reputable but bulkier cousins from Yangcheng Lake in the same province, so this enchanting waterway in Jiangsu’s Yangzhou struggles to poach foreign tourists from the bigger and more famous West Lake in Hangzhou. 

But as I stood on its banks, admiring the visual poetry of the weeping willows stroking the water amid arched bridges and pagodas, many built centuries ago by wealthy salt merchants in honour of their benefactors, the area’s selling points became suddenly obvious. 

In a crab shell: There was no one there. (Okay, there were a couple of tourists – but that’s in thecontext of a city with a population of almost 5 million. Even though it was a Wednesday in fall – the city hits its tourism peak in late April, when its indigenous Qiong flower paints the city white for several weeks – the lake was deserted. 

In contrast, the West Lake saw a million visitors pitch up over the recent National Day holiday, which for me pretty much defeats the object of going. 

We had been invited to this green-belt city in southern Jiangsu under the pretext of tasting its peculiar variant of hairy, or “mitten” crab, a local delicacy that sets hearts racing around the Yangzte River Delta from mid-August to December. The real reason was to decide if the city justifies a spot on the regional tourist circuit. 

There’s still a month left to enjoy the rich and tasty flesh for which this city is famous. Fished from Gaoyou Lake, the sixth-largest in the country, the local hairy crab is less sweet but more succulent than its regional rivals. It is also recognisable by its slender shell and redder roe. Debate rages around whether the male or female is more delicious, but both are rich, creamy and fairly sweet. 

Shanghainese gourmands assured me the male is better, with more meat. Whereas its roe is yellow and creamy, the female’s is redder and slightly richer. The male is in season in October. The female becomes flavour of the month in November. 

We wash them down with a side dish of Zhenjiang black vinegar and ginger, complemented by Yangzhou yellow fried rice, crispy pork dipped in sugar, and a yellow soup made using soft bean curd and hairy crab roe. The local dishes were artfully prepared, colourful and not too oily. 

Hairy crab may not be for everyone. You’re going to get messy while eating it, you’ll probably lose face along the way, but you must try it. For many, the first taste of this furry cruustaceans’ sumptuous flesh is the start of a culinary love affair that lasts their whole life.