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Crabbing, Dahl-style |
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A crush on a handsome hero, Roald Dahl's vermicious knids and the joy of landing a basket of crabs. |
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By Lucy Dahl
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Monday, 05 October 2009 |
08:40 |
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Lucy Dahl, on the right, with her sister, Ophelia.
I love crabbing, something I rediscovered the first time we visited the island. We were new to Orcas Island, Wash. I had dragged my antisocial and reluctant husband to our Los Angeles friend’s house, who, we recently learned, had owned a house up there for many years. It was August, crabbing season, but I had never thought of catching them myself. Minutes after we arrived at the party, a huge pot full of large, steaming Dungeness crab was emptied onto the picnic table covered with newspaper. The other guests greedily grabbed their crackers and dug in, but for me, something happened. Something wonderful and unexpected, a type of déjà vu. The smell, the sound, the sight of these large crustaceans took me back to a day that I had long forgotten. It was summer, I was young, and my family and I were in Norway.
Orge was a friend of my father's. I remember having a crush on the handsome blonde Viking. Not only was he brave and kind, he was an expert scuba diver. For a young girl, it was both exciting and fun to watch him sit on the edge of his little boat, miles from land and flip backwards in a type of backward somersault into the cool waters and swim swiftly out of sight. We all watched as the bubbles from his oxygen tank burst to the surface, slowly moving farther away from our boat and toward the darkness of the open sea. We watched and waited, silent to begin with, until I could bear it no longer.
"How long will Orge be, Daddy?"
My father didn't answer right away; instead he lit his pipe, thinking.
"That depends on how many vermicious knids (a fictional species of amorphous aliens) are down there today and if they're hungry or not." The sweet pipe smoke wafted around us. "But he'll be back, hopefully before it gets dark. It's not much fun down there after dark."
Orge in full scuba regalia.
I don't remember how long Orge was gone; five minutes to a 7-year-old can seem like an hour or even more. But eventually, the little bubbles came into view.
"There he is!" one of us exclaimed, proud to be the first to spot the bubbles moving toward us, confirming the survival of our friend from the war of the vermicious knids. But my father, of course, couldn't resist one more. "Let's hope he's not missing an arm or a leg." We waited. Let's hope.
When Orge broke the surface of the chilly waters, he was smiling, brave and handsome. In one hand, he held a spear with a fish, the other, a big mesh bag filled with the biggest, most beautiful crabs I had ever seen. Orge had risked his life for these crabs, faced the vermicious knids with great courage and for that he was my hero, big, blonde, strong and brave.
A beachside fireplace heated a pot filled with seawater as my two sisters and brother jumped over the rocks, pulling mussels from the tide pools and filling our shirts with the wet, shiny shells that we then presented to Orge with the pride of a hunter his equal. He, in turn, wrapped seaweed around our mussels and cooked them over the open fire while the crabs boiled and steamed in the salty water from which they were harvested just moments before.
And that explains my passion for crabbing here on Orcas Island. Unlike brave Orge, I drop big, round traps filled with all types of bait--from fish carcasses to last night's leftovers. And then I wait, almost like a widow, waiting for her whaling husband to return from the sea, walking out to the beach with binoculars to check that my buoys are still in sight and haven't been swept away with a strong tide. I find myself thinking about the crabs, even visualizing them clambering into the trap. I wonder if some will be female and have to be gently returned to the sea. I wonder why there is such a soup called "she crab," as by law, we can only keep the males. Finally, after the hours have crept by and it's time to start the little outboard, I am filled with childlike expectation and excitement.
My children, my husband and friends are amused by the hours that I spend on a so-called sport that often yields nothing but some old chicken bones in an empty trap. They don't know why I love it so. They don't know because they never knew Olga or my father, my mother or my sisters and brother or days long ago when the only care in the world was catching crabs and pulling mussels in the late Norwegian summer sun.
Lucy Dahl with her crabs on Orcas Island.
Photo by Lucy Dahl
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Last Updated on Friday, 13 November 2009 11:21 |
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From café cortado to smoked fish to paella, the Spanish capital is a trove of exceptional food.