Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:01:32] Nice to meet you too.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:01:33] And I went to her house in the Ingleside neighborhood of San Francisco, where she’s hosting 18 family members for Thanksgiving this year.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:01:41] So this is where Thanksgiving is going to be?
Vicky Francisco [00:01:44] Yeah. You know, because this is Grand Central Station.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:01:47] Yeah. You said Grand Central Station?
Vicky Francisco [00:01:49] It is, Yeah.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:01:53] She said that her mother started the tradition in the 80s, and she says it’s just not Thanksgiving without crab.
Vicky Francisco [00:02:01] The one fresh from the bowl. It’s very flaky. The meat is white, and it’s just. There’s a distinct, fresh flavor. Steamed, simple seasoning, salt and pepper. Nothing really fancy. It’s the dipping sauce. That’s great. You should have garlic butter sauce. And then another sauce is like a garlic vinegar. And of course, you have to have the rice. This is a tradition with us.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:02:29] She says she doesn’t really, like, know what it is, but she says, you know, maybe it’s the taste or maybe it’s kind of like this ritual where everyone kind of rolls up their sleeves and gets in there and starts cracking shells and taking out the meat and dipping it in tasty sauces. But she says, like, nothing brings her family together like crab.
Vicky Francisco [00:02:48] You know that crab like seafood, You tossed it on the table, newspaper kind of thing. Rough and rugged.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:02:56] And it’s worth noting that, you know, her mom is an immigrant from the Philippines. I think this was a way for her mom both to connect with her, her Filipino culture and also tap into this San Francisco tradition.
Vicky Francisco [00:03:08] I guess this year and for the past years, it’s really not so rough and rugged as we would like it to be. There’s this extra piece that’s missing that just makes it Thanksgiving.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:21] Yeah, there’s there’s really nothing like eating kamayan style, as we call it, with your hands. And this, I guess, tradition of eating with crabs wasn’t really the case for me growing up in the Bay Area. But how important is eating crab to Bay Area life and culture as well?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:03:42] Yeah, it’s kind of like the stuff of legend right now. In the Bay Area. Traditionally, the commercial Dungeness crab season would open up on November 15th. And that’s just enough time for crabbers to go out, catch a bunch of crab, and it’s ready for people’s Thanksgiving tables. Of course, this isn’t like a uniform thing. Like plenty of people eat turkey, but also some people don’t like Turkey. So it’s kind of a cool way to have something besides Turkey. If you don’t like Turkey and also connect with something that’s unique about the Bay Area.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:22] Yeah, and that’s in season. And I mean, how do people catch crab and where do they catch it? I imagine the, the San Francisco Bay.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:04:32] So commercially speaking, San Francisco has had this, you know, local crab fleet for generations. And basically once the season opens up, people get in local crab boat captains. Usually they’re pretty small crews. They’re like 2 or 3 people. And they’re really what I’ve heard from talking to fishermen is that the San Francisco fleet is unique because it’s a lot of like mom and pop boats. So it’s a lot of kind of owner operators, people that have, you know, done it for generations or their families have been doing it. And basically they stack up their boats high with crab traps and they head out the Golden Gate and they go pretty far out, you know, sometimes 15 to 20 miles, or maybe they’ll go close to shore. The only thing is, is that they have to fish outside of the Golden Gate and they’ll basically crab from sunup to sundown. They’ll go out and drop their traps and the traps sink to the ocean floor. And then they’re connected to a boogie by a rope so the crabbers can come back. Sometimes they leave it for a couple of hours, sometimes for a whole day, and they come back and they pull the trap back up. And if they’re lucky, the crab have been attracted to the bait that’s been left in the trap. And the traps fill the crab. Then they drive back to San Francisco, unload the crab and head back out again. They’ve told me it’s called a derby fishery. Basically, as soon as the season opens, they hit it hard. They leave at like four in the morning. They fish all day. They stay out there till their boats full. They come back and in some cases they won’t even rest or sleep. They’ll just head right back out again because they’re just trying to really make that money.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:16] Yeah. And it also occurs to me I’m just like imagining like, that all these crab are still alive, right? Because that’s the best way to eat them when they’re fresh like that. But I guess the reason why we’re talking now is because commercial crabbing, this sort of image that you just describe to us is actually not really happening right now. Right. Commercial crabbing season has actually been delayed past Thanksgiving. And I assumed it was because of climate change, but it’s actually not that really? Right?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:06:50] Well, like anything in the ocean, climate change is playing a part. But the reason that the crab season is being delayed is maybe not what you might think. Right now, the commercial Dungeness crab season in all of California is delayed until at least December 15th, and it could get delayed further. To really understand this, we kind of have to go back to 2015 and 2016. Those were two years when there was a really steep increase in entanglements of whales in crab fishing gear. And so if you remember, I was talking about how the crab traps are connected to a boogie by a rope. Turns out what can happen is that whales or other migrating sea life can actually get entangled in that rope. And that’s actually a pretty serious thing. It can cause injury or death in some cases. In 2015 and 2016 and 2016, specifically, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Noah said that there were 48 confirmed entanglements of whales, and that was mostly in California. That was for the whole West Coast, but that was mostly in California. Mostly these were endangered humpback whales, but also blue whales and gray whales. 22 of these entanglements were linked to commercial crab gear. That got the attention of a nonprofit called the Center for Biological Diversity. And they actually sued the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. And they said, look, you’re not doing enough to protect these whales. That went on for some time. And in 2019, they settled. And basically there’s this management framework where before the start of every crab season, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife goes out and they do aerial surveys and they do boat surveys. And if they see whales and high enough concentrations off the coast, they have to delay the start of the season.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:08:47] This has actually been the case for six years at this point, right. That’s commercial crabbing season has been delayed, essentially. And I mean, it sounds like for a good, good reason ultimately. But what impact has that had on commercial crabbing and the commercial crabbing industry?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:09:07] It’s worth noting that the reason that humpback whales are endangered is not commercial crabbing, right? It’s commercial whaling, which was this industry that existed for centuries where we basically hunted humpback whales close to extinction. Those are mom and pop crabbers that I was talking about in the San Francisco Bay say it’s basically the hardest time ever for the industry. Crab is like I talked about how that was a derby fishery, how they kind of make their money real quick and fast and hard. Not having that is a really significant impact to fishermen’s bottom lines. So a lot of fishermen are saying this is going to put us out of business or, you know, one fisherman put it, it’s not the whales that are in danger of being extinct. It’s the fishermen.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:00] So it’s so striking to me how much fishing has been impacted in the Bay Area and how much that industry has changed. But that said, it’s not like you can’t get crab at all anymore, right? Like it just won’t be as fresh. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:10:33] You can buy Dungeness crab at seafood stores throughout the Bay Area. The thing is, is that it’s just not going to be from California. So right now, in all the stores that I went to in the Bay Area, the crab is from Washington State. So that means that it’s been flown in or boated in or trucked in and it’s about twice as much, too. So for a lot of people, they say the combination of it not being as fresh as local crab being more expensive. People like Vicky Francisco said, you know, the taste isn’t as good for them. They’re just like, I’m not interested. And I talked to some store owners who said, you know, people will come into the store, say, hey, I’m looking for, you know, crab. And then they see it’s from Washington state and then they’ll just leave and not buy anything. It’s really worth noting that while the commercial season is delayed, the recreational season is open with some restrictions. And so basically what that means is recreational crabbing is just anyone with a fishing license can go out and get crab as long as they follow the rules. So like I said before, you can’t fish for Dungeness crab within the Golden Gate, but you can go out to Ocean Beach in San Francisco, Baker Beach, China Beach.
Andrew Higa [00:11:43] So I got up at about 4:00 this morning to come out here.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:11:47] I met Andrew Higa at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach and he was out there with two fishing poles. He had his chair, he had his cooler. He had a little pot to put crabs he caught in. So are you catching any today? I got one today. That’s my actually my personal best, I think is a little over 7.5in. One of the biggest ones I have ever. Andrew’s from Hawaii but now lives in the Bay Area and said he grew up fishing. So it’s a passion for him and he loves it. Interestingly, he said he got introduced to the Thanksgiving crab tradition back when he was living in Hawaii and some cousins from the Bay Area actually visited on Thanksgiving and brought live crab with them.
Andrew Higa [00:12:25] I just thought because they’re coming from San Francisco, they just bring us crab. But I didn’t know. It was like a tradition thing.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:12:30] Now that he lives in the Bay Area, his parents are visiting this year and he wants to serve them crab on Thanksgiving. He can’t buy it at the stores and he probably wouldn’t because he’s a fisherman anyway. So he’s trying to catch crab to serve his family on Thanksgiving. So I feel like when you do it yourself and it’s as fresh as it can be, that’s the best. That’s the best eating you can get.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:54] That’s like a huge flex. Honestly, if he can make it happen.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:12:58] Big flex. You can also charter a boat, basically hire a crab boat captain as long as they’re not commercial crab boat captain and have them take you out crabbing.
Patrick Harrington [00:13:13] I think this coming up week is like our busiest week as far as this recreational crab season.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:13:19] Patrick Harrington is a captain and a deckhand on a local charter crabbing boat that runs out of Fisherman’s Wharf. I talked to him and I just wanted to sort of run by some hunches that I had about, you know, how this is affecting the recreational crabbing industry. And he basically said that, you know, in the week before Thanksgiving, they’re fully booked. And it’s pretty much all people who just want to get fresh local crab for Thanksgiving.
Patrick Harrington [00:13:46] I think with the delay, it definitely brings people out to get their holiday crab. You get a lot of customers that they don’t want to fish or anything. They might just set aside the whole time or sleep even. They purely want that holiday crab.
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:14:03] So it’s an indication to me that this Thanksgiving crab tradition is still really important to people. And, you know, people are finding ways to get it.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:15] Well, I mean, as all what do you think it’s going to take to get commercial crab fishing and back on track?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:14:23] I think it’s worth noting that scientists think that climate change played a pretty significant role in bringing whales closer to the shore in 2015 and 2016. That that year when we saw that rise in entanglements. So this is really a problem that’s likely going to hang around. It could even get worse. For generations. The commercial crab season has opened on November 15th, but November 15th, in the ocean now is not November 15th, in the ocean of 50 years ago. Right? It’s warmer. The animals that whales feed on are coming closer to shore. They’re changing their patterns and the whales are starting their southward migration. We’re talking about humpback whales here that actually migrate up and down the coast of California. They actually start their southward migration a little later now. So they’re hanging around more. They’re closer to shore. And it’s just really increasing the risk of entanglement for these crab fishermen. On top of that, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that humpback whale populations have steadily increased in recent decades. So fishermen are really worried that this is a problem that’s just going to hang around.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:15:36] I do want to come back as well to Vicky Francisco, who, as we were talking about at the beginning of this episode, has been serving crab during the holidays for many, many years. I mean, is she doing any of this to make sure that she’s getting crab at the dinner table this year? Or what’s her dinner plans this Thanksgiving?
Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman [00:15:58] Yeah. So I asked Vicky this. I was like, well, you know, you could go out and get some crab yourself or you go on a boat. And she was like, No. And Vicki says after having the experience of buying fresh local crab, she can’t go back to the stuff in the tank that’s come from out of state.
Vicky Francisco [00:16:17] You know, because there’s nothing like Dungeness. And it’s like, if I don’t get it fresh off the boat, it’s just not the same for.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:25] If it ain’t local, I don’t want it.
