Crab is prized in China year round—it’s a dish with "special moment" written

游客2024-06-10  14

问题     Crab is prized in China year round—it’s a dish with "special moment" written all over it in the Chinese family. But in November, when the hairy crabs of the Yangtze delta start developing egg roe (鱼卵), a special passion takes hold. And this fall, it has reached new depths.
    The object of recent Chinese desire is a feisty (活跃的) fist-sized freshwater bottom-dweller harvested from a single lake near Suzhou. Known as the Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab, it enjoys a unique habitat: iron-rich soil that leaves a yellowish tint on the claws, a hardpan (粘土层) lake bottom that forces the crab to develop muscular legs, and shallow sun-filled waters that supposedly promote robustness.
    For years, Yangcheng crabs were mostly found[ in kitchen steamers in Shanghai and Hong Kong. But now, the crab’s rise in power and popularity has begun to parallel China’s own: In an urban China of status and money, Yangcheng crabs have achieved, very quickly, a reputation as the finest and purest flavor in the crab palate (味觉).
    What’s more, for an expanding middle class with disposable income, leisure time, and a relatively new love of eating out, the lake crab is an attainable if expensive delicacy. It has a dark green compact shell, hair on its legs and around its underbelly.
    Markets for authentic hairy crabs, combined with even larger markets of fake hairy crabs, run in the hundreds of millions. Prices for authentic Yangcheng crabs have bubbled up to as much as$45 per crab, from $5 a crab in the 1990s.
    "Crabs come in a thousand flavors in China," says Ping Yuan, an executive chef in Beijing. "But the Yangcheng lake crab is No. 1. The flavor is amazing, and the whole country wants to eat it. But most of what is available are Yangcheng fakes."
    Food in modem China is of enormous cultural importance. Seafood is at the top of the hierarchy (层次)—something with status to share with friends or on special occasions.
    Technically, crab exists in the middle of the seafood hierarchy. It doesn’t carry the same status weight as lobster, shark fin, or abalone. But for ordinary Chinese, the crab is special. In the popular imagination of an aspiring middle class, crab reflects prosperity in a way that elite dishes like shark fin probably never will.
    Few families would countenance a crab dinner, for example, without the father or mother present. Nor is the delight in the experience of wolfing down chunks of meat, as per the lobster; in fact, a hairy crab has precious little meat. Lake crab is all about savoring the flavor: [br] By saying "a dish with ’special moment’" (Line 1, Para.1), the author refers to ______.

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答案 the Yangcheng Lake Hairy Crab

解析 参见第1段,其大意是:螃蟹在中国一年四季都备受推崇——它是中国家庭常在“特别时刻”才摆出的一道菜。但在11月份,当长江三角洲的大闸蟹开始产卵时,大闸蟹备受人们喜爱。而在今秋,这种喜爱之情更甚。直译a dish with“special moment”:一道“特别时刻”的菜,即阳澄湖大闸蟹。
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