Although there have been tantalizing signs that our torpid Dungeness crab season might finally be getting off the dime – one advertisement last week had whole, cooked crabs at $3.99 a pound – it's likely now that the heaviest action won't come until next year, if then. A week ago Friday, the state's Department of Fish and Game delayed the opening of the commercial Dungeness season in the waters of Mendocino, Del Norte, and Humboldt counties until New Year's Eve. The new delay is an extension of one imposed Nov. 22 and is a result of quality tests indicating the crabs are not yet ready (i.e., meaty enough) for harvest. But on New Year's Eve, here we come, ready or not; the department promises "there will be no additional crab testing and no further delays beyond December 31st."

The slightly snarled crab season might not seem so bad if it had not been immediately preceded by a King salmon season crimped by severe limits on the North Coast catch. Crab is a delicacy, after all; it's not as though people will now be starving in the streets because crab fisheries are temporarily closed or boats remain in port because of price disputes (as was the case in mid-November). Crab is a treat, not a staple. But to have both king salmon and Dungeness crab in short supply in the same year is rather a blow. Wild salmon might not exactly be a staple, either, but its true season is much longer (April to November; crab season runs from November to April but tends largely to be over by February), which means a scarcity of it creates a wider hole for menu planners to fill. And you can grill it. And because king salmon competes with a nefarious farmed product, as Dungeness crab does not, it has a particular appeal to those of us attentive to environmental and sustainability concerns. Seeking it out amounts to a statement: the casting of a vote, in a way.

On some visceral level, one's sense of the seasons is disturbed by all shortage and delay. We who live in this garden of mild weather and perpetual green cannot establish our annual rhythms by watching the leaves change or bundling up against the winter's first blizzard or noting, some time toward the end of March, that the ice on the pond is breaking up and a tornado watch has been issued. We must find other ways, and these often have to do with foods: kale and chard, strawberries and asparagus, tomatoes and peaches, peppers and squash. Crab and salmon too, if we are lucky.

Paul Reidinger

paulr@sfbg.com