How to Eat Crayfishes

Reading Article
Author: seph
Posted on 08/02/2004
print :: back to list

H

ow to Eat Crayfishes.

This is sort of a tutorial on the Swedish rituals around crayfishes.
It is split in three parts.
How to Catch Crayfishes.
How to Cook Crayfishes.
How to Eat Crayfishes.

Ok. You are all sitting around the table and it’s time to eat.

Here follows a brief introduction of the anatomy of a crayfish.

Sorry for the bad quality

Eat a crayfish as follows:
Put the legs to your mouth.
Suck your brains out. Make sure you do the “SSSSSSSSSSLURP”-sound right and finish it with an “AAAH” to show how much you liked the taste.
“But I didn’t like it”, you say, “It tasted li…”
Don’t worry. You liked it.
“But it did taste li…”
YOU LIKED IT! SHUT UP!

Then you take a grip behind the backplate of the crayfish and break it open forwards. If you are careful enough, a fluid will stay in the backplate. Drink it.

Next repeat the sucking procedure with the top of the crayfish. The part where the backplate were sitting.

After you have sucked all the fluid out of it, take a grip of the tail, and twist it of. Then peel it and eat.

Next step is to break of the claws.

Perhaps it’s time to sort some things out about different kinds of crayfishes.

In the beginning, there was the European crayfish.
Then it got infected with the crayfishplague.
To have crayfishes, Sweden imported American crayfishes who were immune against the disease.
Thus, Sweden now has two kinds of crayfishes, the European, and the American.

The European crayfish has a softer shell, and more flesh. It also tastes a bit better.
You can see the difference on the claws. The American crayfish has a white spot where the claw folds. This spot is missing on the European crayfish.

Anyway, back to the claws.
Break them of the crayfish.
Then break of the small part of the claw.
Chew on the side of the claw, until you can open it up and pick the flesh out.
Eat the flesh and enjoy.

Now. How about the schnapps?

Well. Every now and then, the host/hostess pours everyone (who will not be driving home) a little glass of schnapps or vodka. Then he/she suggests a song.
There is a lot of songs for this occation. Unfortunately most of them are untranslatable but examples are “Twinkle Twinkle Little Crayfish” or “The Crayfish and I”.
After the song is finished, drink.

Active Users (1)[ cima55 ]