Soft Shell Crab

Staring down at my plate I find myself immersed in a surreal situation, simultaneously questioning my own sanity and wondering if perhaps I'm still stuck in a dream. There's a whole crab on my plate covered in batter and nestled between two buns, a meal delivered straight from whatever dark place spawns nightmares. I'm half expecting the beast to start waving his claws at me in protest of the situation and if I move my face closer, which one of us will bite first?

I firmly hold the beast between the buns and lunge at a claw, ripping at it rabidly like a stark raving lunatic... how apropos. The flesh is soft and the appendage offers little resistance to my jaws as I rip it from the socket.

Oh soft-shell crab, you delicious nightmare. When a crab outgrows its shell and needs to form another, it molts and shortly thereafter (approximately four days) can be eaten whole.

So I eat the limbs as they dangle lifelessly, yet still threateningly, off the sandwich so the little bastard can't escape. The meat is sublime... moist, flavorful, and easy to chew, like those really expensive crab legs you actually have to crack open to eat. Once I render the crustacean a decadal amputee then I get to work on the body. A word of advice for anyone else venturing to try soft-shell crab, rip off the limbs first and put them aside while you devour the body, save the best for last. The body is not bad bet there is far more thin shell material present and can be a little bland and feels strange to chew. Overall a great experience that was both delicious and disturbing.

Raw Oysters

I'd heard just as many awful things about raw oysters as I had good so my curiosity had been piqued for quite some time. My prior attempts to order these strange creatures at restaurants had been thwarted by them being out of season or not in stock at the time so I jumped at my recent opportunity to indulge while patronizing a local shack at the end of a dock.

And when the six monstrosities arrived on a plate I was fully expecting to enjoy my experience. I love raw fish and like cooked oysters so how could this be much different?

The sensation had been described to me before but I'd thought it an exaggeration; eating raw oysters is like swallowing a mouthful of phlegm. But not just any phlegm, mind you, but the kind coughed up in the midst of a horrid bacterial infection or after a long bender involving smoky bars and student parties. I was instructed to swallow them whole, sliding the grey ball of mucous down the back of my throat with a few shell particles and pieces of sand. Wanting to get a complete experience, I even chewed a couple of them but the gelatinous texture was far too disgusting, particularly with all of the grit scraping against my teeth. And what to say of the taste? I guess it wouldn't have been much different from cooked oysters if it weren't for the thick mucous membrane that tasted like, well, mucous.

The last couple mollusks were a challenge but my pyloric sphincter is strong and I was able to prevent them from hurtling back up, despite the nausea and slight heaves. I can't fathom the appeal and won't be volunteering for a repeat experience any time soon but I'm happy to have tried them nonetheless. For now I'll stick with the cooked variety.

Squid In Ink

Much like my encounter a few weeks ago with the canned octopus, I simply couldn't resist the temptation of this item's visual assault on my eyes as they traversed the many strange items in the latino section of my local Wal-Mart. More important was the disturbing presence of squid ink as a marinade. Conjuring up images of the viscous black fluid I associate with quills and inkwells, I thought for sure this was going to be one disgusting venture.

The first thing that hit me when I opened the can was not the sickening sight of the squid pieces suspended in what looks like motor oil from a high mileage vehicle but the smell. I enjoy most varieties of fish and other seafood, eating tuna most days out of the week, but this had to be the strongest fishy scent to hit my nose at such a proximity. It was as if an entire fishing wharf had been rendered down into a vile fluid and injected into a can.

Somehow growing accustomed to the smell, I moved onto the visual inspection. This simply did not look savory. The squid meat used in this concoction must be from the body of the beast as there was no evidence of tentacles. So I was essentially looking at meat shingles in a vat of tar and contemplating whether or not to stick it in my mouth.

Taking the plunge I was met with a texture and taste unlike any other I have encountered in my previous experiences with squid. The meat was tougher but not as rubbery as from the tentacles and had more of a fishy flavor. I am not sure what notes came from the ink itself as I read on the package that the marinade had been adulterated with tomato sauce, vegetable oil, garlic, and other spices. The taste was not very nice overall but not unpleasant either. I can see that it would go well cooked in something as opposed to being sampled in isolation.

Squid in ink is highly disturbing. Most of this is mental but the stench and oiliness are enough to put me off from trying it out of the can again. However, if anyone wants to whip me up a delicious meal using this as an ingredient then I'll be more than willing to give it a second go.

Canned Octopus

I've eaten plenty of cephalopods throughout my years but it was the packaging that caught my eye on this one. The picture, misleading as they all are, seemed to indicate that the can would contain intact tentacles and I simply couldn't pass up that photo opportunity. Much to the dismay of my visual cortex, gripping the pull-tab and peeling back the lid of the can revealed several mini-filet looking slices of tentacle. So, being the complete weirdo that I am, I worked with what I had and set about trying to reconstruct a whole appendage out of the pieces.

Photographic activities aside, I thought the taste of the octopus was going to be ruined by the oil it was packed in but, after a quick flash, much of the oil came off and helped cook the outer flesh.

Octopus is a very rubbery meat, much like chewing on fish flavored twizzler. I was rather surprised to find that the quality of this specimen was rather high with the texture of a fresh catch and the natural smokey flavor that can be found in good octopus and squid.

While I don't plan on getting this again because the portion was rather small for the price, I'd recommend it to anyone needing some good cephalopod as a minor ingredient for a dish in regions where fresh caught seafood is out of the question.