THE BESTIAL DINING PLEASURE

A popular tee-shirt reads "I got crabs at Fisherman's Wharf'. Humorously suggesting that the wearer enthusiastically performed unmentionable acts in a fit of touristic inebriation or wild abandon while away from his or her family at an event in San Francisco, with a human being, animal, or mutant, of either gender, dubious morals, and physical cleanliness. Which, having met numerous conventioneers and business visitors, I would definitely believe.

All of us here at Amalgamated Acme Crustacean Corporation are passionately committed to bringing you more arms, legs, claws, and carapaces than you can possibly consume. Which is why we wish to assure you that crabs, as such, are NOT sourced by misguided lascivious acts done while drunk, but bought at emporia on Stockton Street or out on Clement, using cold hard cash. Or cold hard credit cards. Either. Live at time of sale, it's up to you whether they perish on the block at time of purchase (whackity whack) or get slipped head first into a pot in the privacy and comfort of your home.


An acquaintance insists that suffering makes the flesh sweeter, and that therefore you need to rip off the legs to be added last. Personally I think that's utter balderdash and batshit crazy, as well as horribly cruel. The best is instant death in that pot of boiling water.

If you have them whacked at the store, you should sautée them with garlic, sweet tomatoes, and lots of chilipaste. Ketam tjabeh (辣椒蟹 'laat jiu haai''; chili crab), made with Dungeness crab (鄧杰內斯蟹 'tang kit noi si haai') instead of the usual mud crab (青蟹、鋸緣青蟹 'cheng haai', 'gui yü cheng haai'; scylla serrata) here in San Francisco, is intercoursing divine.

This is supposed to be a communal dish. A feast enjoyed with company. I would suggest that given how messy eating crab is, it would be far better to feast in private, alone, at the kitchen table under the brightly dangling light bulb, with lots of newspaper on the table, a roll of paper towels, and wash your face and hands at the sink afterwards. Eat all of it, leave no scraps. Those angry vegans you live with won't be home from their weird tofurky Christmas banquet followed by psychedelic mushrooms and ayahuasca for meaningfulness till much later, but they would be outraged and disgusted at the murder of an innocent animal for your bestial dining pleasure.


If your apartment mate or apartment mates are Cantonese American, they'll be perfectly fine with unaliving the crustacean. Just cook some of it with scallion, ginger, and black bean sauce, instead of so much chilipaste. That way they can have it too.


NOTE: after a lovely Pakistani lunch in a place filled with Muslims and various types and Chinese, we walked slowly home while I smoked a pipe. She then watched some drama teevee, and then retired to her room for a long nap.
It was a good Christmas.



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