Oysters, crab, and Black Label

Recently, munch went AWOL for three weeks. The holiday was a road trip involving camping and lots of braaing which, whilst being completely delicious, doesn’t make for very interesting food stories. Especially since we became particularly attached to sweet potatoes and sweet corn wrapped in foil and roasted in the coals, and pretty much stuck to those two as our vegetable options for the entire trip.

Two important food events took place for me, though. I ate my first oyster, and my first crab. It is embarrassing to admit that I only now ate my first oyster. I blame my mother: whenever oysters are mentioned, she tells the story of how her brothers forced an oyster down her throat when she was very small. As you can imagine, it was an unpleasant experience, and my mother’s description of the oyster getting stuck in her throat always comes back to me whenever I’m confronted with any. As a result, I’d managed to avoid them very well. But while we were at Andrew’s parents’ house three weeks ago, having a party for his sister’s birthday, I walked into the kitchen after midnight and was confronted with Andrew’s dad, two shucked oysters, lemon juice, and black pepper. Andrew’s dad was shocked that I’d never had an oyster, and took it upon himself to feed me my first, one of several he had collected on the beach earlier that day.

It was enormous. It also unfortunately looked just like oysters always do look. There didn’t seem to be the option of declining, and I couldn’t quickly enough think of a way to toss a giant oyster over my shoulder and make it disappear while pretending to chomp down on it. I decided to block out potential consequences, worst of which would be losing a bellyful of party snacks onto my in-laws’ kitchen floor, and try to just get the oyster down as quickly as possible.

That wasn't very quick, though, because the oyster was so massive. I had to chew a bit. And – it was good. Not snotty at all! Quite mild-tasting, and with a texture almost like fillet. I may not be running around trying to cram every available oyster down my throat, but if confronted with them again, I’d happily eat a few. (Apologies for the anticlimactic ending. I am very happy that I did not, in fact, throw up mini quiches onto the kitchen floor, although that would have made for a more amusing story. And apologies for no pictures - it was, as I mentioned, midnight and unexpected.)

   

The second important food event was my first whole crab. Crabs can be difficult to come by here, at least at affordable prices, so I’m not as embarrassed that this was my first time eating a whole crab. We were at a restaurant in Mozambique, and the crab “carry” (we assumed it was crab curry) was cheap. I was a bit confounded when it arrived, pretty orange claws in a coconutty broth that were impossible to crack open. I tore at them for a few minutes, then wailed to Andrew that I’d never be able to eat my dinner. Luckily the restaurant was a casual establishment that didn’t pay too much attention to customers, since at this point I discovered the tongs intended for cracking the crab shell, right next to the bowl of crab. The tongs made everything much easier, I was able to eat my dinner, and it was good. Again, I’m not going to go on a hunt for crab whenever possible, but I’d happily eat it again.

So there you have it, the two important food events of my holiday. Unless you can count becoming quite attached to Black Label quarts, which also happened.