LUST for LIFE

Eating crabs cooked Chinese-style is unlike nibbling sandwiches. It’s a messy affair. But crab lovers swear that the ritual of using mallets or hammers to smash the crustacean shell makes the feast more enjoyable and fun. Indeed, the mess involved and effort required to get at the meat makes it seem even tastier.

That said, my family and I had dinner yesterday with my sis Angie, brother Patrick and niece Sydney. This was one of our regular get-togethers. We dined at the Green View Restaurant in Jalan 19/3, Petaling Jaya. Our order included ‘Crabs in Creamy Buttered Milk’ served in a claypot. The restaurant charged RM60 per kilogram for the super size Indonesian crabs. These are bigger than the ones pictured here (’Sweet & Sour Crabs’ taken at a restaurant in Pulau Ketam, an island off the coast of Selangor) which are characterized by their hugh claws and bulky-looking bodies.

With the exceptionof yours truly, everyone was enjoying the crabs, going through the ritual, savouring the thick juicy meat to the last bits and licking the yummy juices from their fingers. Now and then, juices and shell bits would propel in all directions like bullets as the shells were smashed. Angie noticed that I was not touching the crabs, and taking a cue from my weblog title, she jested that I have no “lust for crabs”. Everyone at the table laughed.

She’s right. I don’t having a craving for crabs. The messy ritual is not my cup of tea, so to speak. Furthermore, being a Buddhist, given a choice I would refrain from consuming fish and crustaceans where I am consciously aware that they would be taken straight from a tank or cage, slaughtered, cooked and served.