1,900 Pounds of Dungeness Crab, Just Add Diners

Dungeness crab, which is larger than Atlantic blue crab, has not always held the exalted place on diners’ plates it does today. In the 1850s, as fortune seekers poured into San Francisco at the height of the Gold Rush, crabs were foraged from the bay with traps made from old barrel hoops and twine, said Paul Stangl, author of the upcoming book, “San Francisco Seafood: From Ocean to Table.”

“They would collect them, carry them in sacks and sell them to saloons,” Mr. Stangl said.

Organized crab fishing emerged in the late 1800s, and as the industry flourished, fishermen, many of them immigrants, ventured beyond the Bay. By the early 1900s, Mr. Stangl said, motorized boats allowed crabbers to travel even farther out to sea, where crabs were larger, meatier and plentiful.