The cooking time is 10 to 12 minutes. The cooked sections are sprayed with 

 clean fresh cold water immediately upon leaving the cooker. This cools the 

 crab sufficiently for the shakers to handle them, and tends to loosen the 

 meat from the shell. 



In some plants a batch-cooking process is used. The crabs, in 

 baskets, are lowered into a vat of boiling water where they are cooked for 

 10 to 12 minutes. The baskets are then lowered into a second vat of clean 

 cold water where the crabs are momentarily cooled. 



The still-warm sections of the cooked crabs are taken to the 

 shaking tables where the meat is removed from the shell. Women employed 

 to remove the meat are called "shakers". The meat from the body cavities 

 is removed before the leg meat. To remove the body meat the shaker lightly 

 crushes the body between the palm of her hand and the table to loosen the 

 meat imbedded in the cavities. The crab section is then tapped against the 

 side of the pan and the meat falls into the pan (fig. 7). 



Figure 7 



Meat from the body 

 sections are shaken 

 out by workers. 







^ 



■-3 



8 



