A mixture of white and brown meat is used, often arranged in an artistic style. If the claws are included, these may be cracked by the diner or the meat from the claws may be included whole.
A simpler variation is the crab meat removed from the shell and as a filling for a sandwich with similar accompaniments.
The meal is strongly associated with English coastal counties, and there are notable crab fisheries at Cromer, Newlyn, and Mersea Island. A significant amount of crab is also caught around Pembrokeshire and Anglesey in Wales and all around the coast of Scotland, and dressed crab is usually available in these regions.
Both on the coast and further inland, a simpler form of dressed crab is available from seafood stalls, part of a cuisine that includes mussels, whelks, jellied eels, cockles and shrimp. This version is usually sold with salt, pepper, and malt vinegar.
While commercial crab fisheries in the UK date back centuries, and subsistence catching dates back to prehistoric times, the specific combination with Marie Rose sauce originated in the 1960s; around the same time as another "new traditional" cold meal, the Ploughmans lunch.
