Crab placed inside the hard shell. One American way to prepare crab meat is by extracting it and adding varying amounts of binders, such as egg white, cracker meal, mayonnaise or mustard, creating a crab cake. Crabs can also be made into a bisque, a global dish of French origin which in its authentic form includes in the broth the pulverized shells of the shellfish from which it is made. Imitation crab, also called Surimi, is made from minced fish meat that is crafted and colored to resemble crab meat. While it is sometimes disdained among some elements of the culinary
Atlantic horseshoe crab role in the local ecosystems, with their eggs providing an important food source for shorebirds, and the juveniles and adults being eaten by sea turtles. The other three extant (living) species in the family Limulidae are also called horseshoe crabs, but they are restricted to Asia. This group of animals is also known as horsefoot, or saucepan. Some people call the horseshoe crab a "helmet crab", but this common name is more frequently applied to a true crab, a malacostracan, of the species "Telmessus cheiragonus". The term "king crab" is sometimes used for horseshoe crabs, but it is more usually