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Fish and seafood from Korea, inland rivers and rice fields

Chamge jeot참게젓

Chamge-jeot, usually called chamge-jang, is freshwater mitten crab steeped in boiled and cooled soy sauce. The sauce is poured off, boiled, cooled and poured back every few days, several times over; in Pyeongan a strong brine was used instead. Raw freshwater crab can carry the lung fluke.

Fully documentedFish and seafood20 days – 5.2 monthsFamily: Jeotgal (Korean salted fermented seafood)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe folk encyclopedia's proportion: about 1 doe of soy sauce to 20 crabs. A doe is a traditional volume measure.
Live freshwater crabs (chamge)20 crabsFemales caught in rice fields at harvest are prized[nfm-gejang-damgi][nfm-gejang]
Soy sauce, boiled and cooledabout 1 doe (되)[nfm-gejang-damgi]
Ginger and garlic, sliced[nfm-gejang-damgi]

Total time across the recorded steps: 20 days – 5.2 months

Start
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What changes: Live crabs sit in clean water and spit out grit

Step 1 of 5
Let the crabs purge
Time
2–3 days
Reported
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The crabs spit out grit and dirt.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Chamge-jeot, usually called chamge-jang, is freshwater mitten crab steeped in boiled and cooled soy sauce. The sauce is poured off, boiled, cooled and poured back every few days, several times over; in Pyeongan a strong brine was used instead. Raw freshwater crab can carry the lung fluke. Made in 5 steps over 20 days – 5.2 months. The longest step, seal and keep cold, takes 15 days – 5 months (Lee G.H 2010).

Key numbers
Main step15 days – 5 monthsReported[patent-chamge]Seal and keep cold
Temperature3–7 °CReported[patent-chamge]Pour on cooled soy sauce

What makes this one different

Chamge-jeot uses a freshwater crab, steeped in soy sauce rather than packed in dry salt, so it is closer to gejang than to most salt jeot. Before lung fluke worries, "gejang" meant chamge-jang; now gejang is usually made from sea crabs.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Pyeongan brine chamge-jeotSteeped in strong brine instead of soy sauce so it keeps from autumn to spring.

Safety

Freshwater crabs can carry the lung fluke Paragonimus westermani. In one experiment, larvae were put into freshwater crabs. Freezing for 48 h at -20 °C or 12 h at -40 °C inactivated all of them. Soy sauce marinade alone was slow: after 32 days 31.3–50 % still survived at 5–10 % salt, and all were inactivated after 64 days. A short marinade does not make raw freshwater crab safe.

Hazards the sources name: Lung fluke Paragonimus westermani (metacercariae; soy sauce-marinated freshwater crabs are a source of human paragonimiasis).

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Gejang methods are recorded from the 1600s, in books such as the Jeungbo sallim gyeongje.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [suh1987] Suh H.K. and Yoon S.S. 1987, A study on the regional characteristics of Korean chotkal (1): kinds and materials, J. Korean Soc. Food Culture 2(1):45-54 (abstract)paper
  2. [suh1987b] Suh H.K. 1987, A study on the regional characteristics of Korean chotkal: the ways of preservation of chotkal, J. Korean Soc. Food Culture 2(2):149-161 (abstract)paper
  3. [nfm-gejang-damgi] Suh H.K., Gejang damgeugi (게장담그기), National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture: Korean Seasonal Customs (한국세시풍속사전)book
  4. [nfm-gejang] Choi Y.H., Gejang (게장), National Folk Museum of Korea, Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture: Korean Food, Clothing and Housing (한국의식주생활사전)book
  5. [kim2017] Kim T.I., Oh S.R., Dai F., Yang H.J., Ha S.D., Hong S.J. 2017, Inactivation of Paragonimus westermani metacercariae in soy sauce-marinated and frozen freshwater crabs, Parasitology Research 116(3):1003–1006, doi:10.1007/s00436-017-5380-7 (abstract)paper
  6. [patent-chamge] Lee G.H., Chamgejang and its manufacturing method, Korean patent application KR20120041824A (filed 2010)other