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Fish and seafood from Eastern China

Zuìxiè (drunken crab)醉蟹

Zuixie is whole live crab scrubbed and packed into a jar with glutinous rice wine and a cooked, cooled brine of salt, sugar and spices, topped with baijiu and sealed for about a week. Raw drunken crab can carry lung fluke and Vibrio; a factory patent pasteurises the packed crab, and a study tested irradiation to extend its shelf life.

A short entry: the sources we found record only what is said here about Zuìxiè itself.

DocumentedFish and seafood7 days

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceOne factory batch for 50 kg of crab, from Chinese patent CN101596004A (2009).
Live crabs50 kg[cn101596004]
Glutinous rice wine25 kg[cn101596004]
Refined salt8 kg[cn101596004]
White sugar6 kg[cn101596004]
Ginger and spring onion4 kg each[cn101596004]
Spices, with fennel seed, 20 red chillies and 10 pieces of orange peel200 g Sichuan pepper; 500 g each star anise and cassia[cn101596004]
Monosodium glutamate400 g[cn101596004]
Daqu baijiu, poured over the top1.5 kg[cn101596004]

Total time across the recorded steps: 7 days

Start
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What changes: The live crabs are scrubbed clean and drained

Step 1 of 5
Scrub and drain the live crabs
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
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

Zuixie is whole live crab scrubbed and packed into a jar with glutinous rice wine and a cooked, cooled brine of salt, sugar and spices, topped with baijiu and sealed for about a week. Raw drunken crab can carry lung fluke and Vibrio; a factory patent pasteurises the packed crab, and a study tested irradiation to extend its shelf life. Made in 5 steps over 7 days. The longest step, pack the crabs in a jar with rice wine and brine, top with baijiu and seal, takes 7 days (Sheng Y 2009).

Key numbers
Main step7 daysReported[cn101596004]Pack the crabs in a jar with rice wine and brine, top with baijiu and seal
Temperature70 °CReported[cn101596004]Pasteurise the packed crab (factory method)

What makes this one different

Zuixie cures crab with rice wine, baijiu and salt instead of soy sauce (Korean ganjang gejang) or salt brine or fish sauce (Thai pu dong).

Related ferments

Safety

Eating raw or pickled freshwater crab, such as drunk crab in China, is a known route of paragonimiasis (Lu et al. 2026). CDC says this lung fluke spreads through crab that is raw, partly cooked, pickled or salted, says never to eat raw freshwater crab, and says to cook crab to at least 63 °C. The wine, baijiu and salt here do not replace that cooking, so this page records a practice and is not a recipe to follow at home. In Shengsi County, raw, lightly cooked and fermented seafood such as drunken crab is linked to a high risk of Vibrio parahaemolyticus infection (Chen et al. 2026). The patent method holds packed crab at about 70 °C for 20 minutes; that is the patent's own claim, not a published test against the fluke. Irradiation with cold storage at 0–5 °C was tested to extend shelf life (Chen et al. 2001).

Hazards the sources name: Paragonimus lung flukes, from eating pickled or raw freshwater crab such as drunk crab; Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a high risk where seafood such as drunken crab is eaten raw.

History and sources

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

Sheng Y. and colleagues of a Dongying company (Shandong) published a factory method for drunken crab as Chinese patent CN101596004A in 2009. A 2001 study found that the crab's shelf life was only 3 months and tested irradiation with cold storage to extend it. Surveillance in Shengsi County (Zhoushan, Zhejiang) over 2019–2024 linked raw, lightly cooked and fermented seafood such as drunken crab to Vibrio parahaemolyticus infection.

  1. [chen2001] Chen X., Shen Q., Bao J., Cao H., Zhang Y., Han Y. 2001, 醉蟹辐照灭菌保质加工工艺研究 (Sterilizing effect of irradiation processing on drunk crab), 核农学报 (Henong Xuebao) 15(4):234–237 (abstract)paper
  2. [cn101596004] Sheng Y., Zhao L., Jiang Z. (Dongying Zhenghan Haiyang Shipin Co.) 2009, 醉蟹的制作工艺 (Manufacture technology of drunken crab), Chinese patent CN101596004Aother
  3. [lu2026] Lu Y.B., Hu K., Mao M.L. et al. 2026, The global distribution of Paragonimus species, Infectious Diseases of Poverty, doi 10.1186/s40249-026-01428-7paper
  4. [chen2026] Chen J., Liu X., Wang H. et al. 2026, Sentinel surveillance-based epidemiological analysis of foodborne diseases in Shengsi County, China, 2019–2024, Infection and Drug Resistance, doi 10.2147/idr.s594651paper
  5. [cdc-paragonimus] CDC, About paragonimiasis (how it spreads and how to prevent it)gov