The widely circulated versions of the origin of eating crabs are the two legends of Dayu passing by a farmer's house and Ganlong's unannounced visit to get lost and meet a girl, but there is no document that clearly records who was the first person to eat crabs, so these two legends are not true.
The earliest written record in China is Zheng Xuan's comments on Zhou Li? Celestial officer? Notes on "People". Zheng Xuan mentioned in the textual research of the sentence "* * * the good shame of offering sacrifices": "What is recommended for shame is what you eat at four o'clock, if it is a fish in Jingzhou, it is a crab in Qingzhou", which means that people in the Zhou Dynasty should take "crab" as the food for offering sacrifices. Crab sauce is the sauce made of crabs.
Extended data
How crabs were eaten in the past dynasties
1, Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties
The way to eat crabs is mainly pickled. There is a section on "Tibetan Crab Method" in Qi Min Yao Shu written by Jia Sixie in the Northern Wei Dynasty, which is about how to pickle crabs with sugar, Polygonum hydropiper soup and salt.
2. Sui and Tang Dynasties
Crabs are mainly eaten by bad crabs and sugar crabs. Bad crabs marinate crabs with distiller's grains, while sugar crabs soak crabs in thin sugar or honey. Textual research records are:
Yang Wanli's "Crispy slices are full of congealed jade, but the golden ones are not melted into sand".
Huang Tingjian's "seaweed sugar crab fertilizer, Jianglao termite alcohol".
Su Shunqing's "Frosted orange sugar crab is new and beautiful, and I feel drunk that everything is wrong in life".
3. Song and Yuan Dynasties
The most famous way to eat is to wash your hands with crabs. According to "Tokyo Dream Record", this dish is made by washing live crabs and pickling them with salt, wine, ginger, orange peel and pepper. Because wash your hands and pick them up, you can eat them, hence the name wash your hands crab. However, there are many parasites in live crabs, so it is safer to cook and cook them for health.
4. Ming and Qing Dynasties
Steamed crabs have become the mainstream way to eat. Zhang Dai's Dream of Tao 'an and Li Yu's Casual Letters both praise and admire steamed crabs.