In the fifth lunar month, when the winter-spring rice harvest is over, the fields are scorched by the scorching summer sun. The crabs cannot stand it and have to crawl out of their "ma" (crab holes) to seek shade under the stubble. At that time, we children, whoever could brave the scorching sun, just needed to take a basket and wade through the fields to pick up crabs like picking up eggs from a nest, as many as we could.
Normally, when going to catch crabs, we would look for soft ground, along the shore where the land surfaced into a hollow that was just above the water level, then put our hands in to fish it out. If we were lucky, we would sometimes find a snake. But water snakes are not poisonous, if we caught a snake, we would get a fresher meal than a bunch of crabs or a basket of fish.
Crab soup with rich countryside flavor. Photo collected
There are many types of crabs: young crabs that are not fully grown yet, if I can find them, my mother will collect them, wash them, mix them with rice vinegar, sprinkle enough fish sauce and salt, then make a dish of fried crab with rice vinegar, it is really delicious. If I can find a molted field crab, I will fry it and eat it whole. Usually, field crabs are prepared by separating the shell from the crab's body, removing the apron (if it is a male crab), and removing the bladder (if it is a female crab). The apron of a male crab is just a piece that covers 1/3 of the middle of the crab's body, while the bladder of a female crab covers the entire lower part of the crab's body. Female crabs are usually bigger and fatter than male crabs. There are female crabs that have eggs, so they are collected into a small bowl of a child assigned to use toothpicks or grapefruit thorns to pick out the crab fat from the inside of the shell that has just been separated.
When we prepare crabs, my sister sits and separates the shells while I pick out the roe. Sometimes we come across crabs that are "stinky" - have parasites in their shells. Large crabs that live a long time are very prone to being stinky. If you find any that are stinky, you have to throw them away and check to see if any of the remaining crabs are stinky. Now that I think about it, crabs with stinky bodies are still delicious and clean. They are several times more delicious and clean than crabs raised in unsafe ways nowadays.
Field crabs are strong so it is very painful to bite, especially the giant crabs, with moss-covered shells (they live long enough to become giant crabs), with large, dark claws like nearly ripe plums. If you do not know how to hold them: use your thumb and index finger to hold the crab's shell on both sides and lift it up, it will bite you until it cannot come off, causing you to open your mouth in pain and scream. As for those who specialize in catching field crabs, it is needless to say: their hands are wrinkled, pale, wet, and full of crab bite marks.
Crab soup and pickled eggplant are two indispensable dishes for summer days. Photo collected
In addition to the above-mentioned stir-fried young crab dish, field crabs are often processed into crab soup, cooked with jute, Malabar spinach or various mixed vegetables picked from home gardens, even picked from fields, pond banks, or dikes. The crabs are shelled and pounded in a mortar, then a small sieve (woven from thick bamboo strips) is taken, a pot is filled with clean water and the small sieve is placed on top, after pounding, the crabs are put from the mortar into the sieve and "quiet" (stirring so that the crab meat and crab juice flows into the pot, and the crab shells, crab claws or other hard, inedible parts are discarded).
After boiling, pour water from the pot into the soup pot. The bottom of the pot is checked again to see if all the residue and sand from the crab shells, claws, and shells have been removed. Then add fish sauce and salt and bring to a boil. When it boils, add the washed and chopped vegetables. Each piece of crab fat forms and floats up like a thin omelet, giving off a seductive yet familiar aroma. When the soup boils, add the crab fat and young crab eggs.
Field crabs are small but fragrant, plump and tastier than brackish water crabs (stone crabs, snake but a bit skinny) or three-sided crabs (dry but not very fragrant). I remember when I went to Be Ly Son island, for lunch, the brothers ordered a whole steamed stone crab. In the group, there was a girl who was wearing braces and found it so delicious that she bit into one and broke off the bracket in her braces. She had to "maintain the status quo" all the way back to Hanoi to get it reattached.
In the past, a country meal only had a pot of crab soup like that with a bowl of pickled eggplant or compressed eggplant, which was enough. The compressed eggplant was a large bowl of eggplant, pickled for a long time, pressed down with round stones from the stream bank, of various sizes and weights, called rock eggplant pickles. The eggplant was pickled in an eel-skin-colored earthenware pot, pressed firmly, pickled for a long time so it absorbed a lot of salt. Every time you ate, you took out a thinly sliced eggplant, squeezed a lemon wedge, sprinkled with a little fresh chili from the garden, thinking about it made my mouth water.
Delicious crispy salted eggplant bowl. Photo collected
In the past, in every house in the countryside, you would see a ceramic jar of pickled eggplant placed next to the kitchen. The water was black, but using that water to cook fish was delicious beyond words, the edge of the jar had white streaks of anaerobic bacteria. Pickled eggplant was made from the type of eggplant that was pickled quickly and eaten quickly. If left for a long time, it would not be as salty as pressed eggplant and would turn sour. When making eggplant for pickling, no matter what kind of eggplant, my mother always told me to cut the stem (ear of the eggplant) without touching the flesh of the eggplant so that when pickling it would not absorb too much salt water and spoil too soon.
Crab and eggplant rice soup originated from here, this set with a bowl of fish sauce or steamed shrimp sauce with chopped chili is a masterpiece. Admittedly, in the past, food was very simple but nutritious and the elders combined it very scientifically and it was delicious.
