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
Crab meat and the animal is then returned to the water. The practice is defended because some crabs can naturally autotomise (shed) limbs and then about a year later after a series of moults, regenerate these limbs. In Western Europe crab meat is derived primarily from the species "Cancer pagurus". "C. pagurus" is a large crab noted for the sweet, delicate flavour of its meat. It is also known as the "Brown Crab", the "Common Crab" or the "Edible Crab". The United Kingdom is the largest fishery for "C. pagurus" with large fisheries in Scotland and a smaller but substantial fishery in