Tuesday, April 04, 2006

I've heard the crabs screaming


It's slowly becoming a birthday tradition for me to munch crab, drink champers, and live large, if only for one day. Because what else are birthdays for but belt popping fullness on food you'd ordinarily never eat?

I may have waxed romantic on crab dinner before, but now, out here on the prairies, with nothing more exotic than Red Lobster, a good crab dinner is hard to find. I don't want merely frozen legs doing a chorus line on my plate, I want a whole goddamned crab, curled up in it's own last moment of agony on my plate. I want oysters on the half shell, doing their last dance down my gullet.

I must say though, I do have a wave of regret about crab. I find it difficult to eat one if I've heard it screaming, which was why having a fancy restaurant kill it for you was so appetizing. They say crabs can't scream, but I was so sure I heard it once. Maybe it was just the sound of boiling water running through it's tiny body. Or maybe it did scream.

I recently purchased 11 dollars of snow crab legs. Frozen in a chorus line package. No screams for me.

But for my birthday, yes, we're going to have to buy live crabs and lobsters and kill them. I don't think I'll be able to look!!! But I'll definitely be able to chomp away at the wee crustaceans.

See, and this is probably the only reason I would be a vegetarian if it was the OLDEN days. No way could I chop the head off a chicken or chase a bison off a cliff. I'd be too squeamy. I'd say "um, I think I'll just have these berries, thanks anyway," and then they'd (the neighborhood) would all laugh at me as I got diarrea. And they'd probably be annoyed at me for eating all these berries.

(Name that comedian)
"I will hide these berries under a rock. There will be no berries, and some animals will die."

I recently purchased crustacean cutlery. Some shell cracking instruments and some long pointy forks with wee spoon like devices on the ends of them for pulling out MEAT.

Which brings me back to vegetarians.

Now I don't mind vegetarians, unless they start harping about my diet (dude I'm native, we FREAKIN' love meat!) but I heard a rather disturbing rumour about vegetarians some years ago. I may even have mentioned it here. But it's SO bizarre that it bears repeating.

I heard that vegetarians eat human placenta because it's the only meat that doesn't involve killing something.

Now that's sick!

I thought it was just an urban legend, but then I asked my good friend "New Man X", who was at the time an avowed vegan.

"We were going to eat my best friend's placenta" she calmly replied, well, with a hint of saliva creeping out of her mouth.

It was too much, the thought of a group of vegans hungrily frying up placenta. I heard it's a good cure for post partum depression, but ew, that's pretty desperate.

Now that makes the screaming of the crabs sound much more tolerable. I mean, I imagine menstruel clots are pretty similar to placenta, but I wouldn't collect them and make omelets, ya know what I mean?

1 comment:

Robin said...

Oh my God, Thirza, that last idea of yours is the gaggiest I've heard since...a level-headed anemic vegetarian friend of mine discussed the possibility of cooking up a placenta for herself. She was wondering where she could find one. AAaaaAaaAaAaAaaAAAAaaaArrrrgggggguuuuHH!!! When she told me I fell off my chair with shrieking and laughing and she laughed back at my, er, hysterical reaction. She wasn't surprised at it but, being a really intelligent and logical person to boot she persisted in seriously disgusting, I mean discussing, the topic. And of course she's right. There's absolutely no rational case to be made that eating a good sausage isn't way grosser than eating a lovely tender placenta with garlic, fresh herbs, and fava beans. Right after she and I wrapped up the conversation I went online and found a recipe for that. I couldn't even read the whole thing through without having to run for the toilet with my hand over my mouth.