All tied up with that little crustacean

According to the 17th-century poet and gourmet Li Yu, 'when the chrysanthemum blooms it is time to eat hairy crabs'. He should know, he was pretty obsessed about these crabs and wrote the most lyrical verses in praise of them.

Four hundred years later, the hairy crab season is still anxiously awaited by gourmets. The season runs from late September to early December, and it is during this time that the crabs are heavy with roe - the whole point of eating them.

One of the best things about seasonal food is that the anticipation makes the treat, when it finally arrives, all the more delicious. Hairy crabs (dai jarp hai, or more colloquially mo hai) are so named because they have coarse hairs on their legs and pincers. The latter are caked in mud from their habit of burrowing, and it is this damp mud that keeps the crab moist and alive when out of water for long periods of time. Useful on the flight to Hong Kong.

To catch the crabs a dam is built with a net along a lake or river bed. At night lanterns are lit across the dam and as the crabs swarm towards the light they are caught by the net. They are then packed, 50 apiece, into wicker baskets and shipped off to eager customers.

The best crabs are reputed to come from the freshwater rivers and lakes of the Kwong So area near Shanghai. They are a traditional Shanghainese delicacy, but the Cantonese have wholeheartedly embraced the treat.

Hairy crabs are now farmed to satisfy the huge demand, not only in Hong Kong and the big cities of China, but anywhere round the world where there is a large Chinese community.