Crayfish Feast

Around 7:30 p.m. the Brandt clan and I drove out to the family farm. As we arrived we were greeted by many members of the family. I have met several of them before on my last trip to the farm, nonetheless I was overjoyed to see them again, and to introduce myself to the others whom I wasn’t familiar with yet.

As I learned, it is still a little early to be the season for Crayfish Feasting. Way back when, people were only allowed to fish for crayfish during a certain period of the year. That is why it was such a big celebration! It is still a tradition to celebrate crayfish, but nowadays one may acquire crayfish during any season of the year so in reality it is not AS special now, but it is still celebrated with happy hearts and in good company.

The crayfish feast was put on by Sven and Genina (Caroline's uncle and his wife). They actually live in Arizona and Tanzania but they come to Gotland every summer to visit family and put on a Crayfish feast. They had brought in a tent to cover us in their backyard, and inside the tent were crayfish decorations, and a long, beautifully set table with enough room to fit the whole jamboree of people.

Before dinner Mikeala, Matilda,(Alicia’s cousins) and Alicia showed me around the farm house. It was very old and beautiful! It’s architecture reminded me of a family friend of mine- Anna Stone’s- old farm house, (Victorian-Style, built around the 1800’s) and when I stepped inside, I almost felt like I took a step back in time. The interior of the house was outstanding! Tall doorways, traditional paintings on the wall, a winding staircase, a big, adorable kitchen.. I could definitely live there!

After my personalized tour we came back to the party and started a game of Kubb. This game actually is rumored to have originated on the island of Gotland, so this was the real deal to be playing it this night! (if you would like to learn more about the game and how it is played click on this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubb )

We had to take a pause in our game because it was time to eat! First we all took our seats, I was seated at the far end of the table and sat close to all of the cousins. At each seat was a traditional crayfish hat, and we promptly placed those on our heads. First course was delicious, warm garlic bread served with cold (what seemed like potato-leak) soup. We scarfed that down, then it was time for the crayfish!

"Have you eaten a crayfish before?" Sven asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Yes I have, but I have never eaten one the Swedish way"

Sven had gone through the work of making me my very own instructions on how to dissect a crayfish for proper eating so I wasn't about to turn that down. It went a little something like this:

When you eat crayfish, you'll have to enjoy picking, cracking, pulling, and breaking apart...

Twist, and pull the tail off the body

Grab hold of the end of the tail. Twist and pull. With a bit of luck, the intestine will follow

If you didn't manage to remove the intestine, do it now. Then, put the tail aside, and save that 'till last. (It's the tastiest part)

Twist off the claws, and break them into smaller parts

If the shell is too hard to break: use a nutcracker. Enjoy the meat of the claws

Pull the legs off the shell. Suck the juice from the body

Use a knife and scrape out the yellow, so called butter, from the shell of the head. Eat it.

Finally, enjoy the tail.

As gory as that sounds, the hard work and carnage of tearing these arthropods apart is well worth while when the tender, delectable meat makes your taste buds sing to the Viking gods.

Our taste buds weren’t the only things singing during this feast. The Swedes take pride while singing their traditional schnapps songs, and after the end of every song, they say SKOL (CHEERS) in unison and drink their schnapps. Now, when I say schnapps, don’t be misled into believing that schnapps is the sweet, easy-going kind like we have back in the States. Nope, the Swedes are too tough for that sissy stuff. Schnapps -to them- is strong Vodka with an earthy flavoring. At this particular feast we had the choice of sipping a Swedish schnapps, called Per Andersson (or something close to that) or torturing ourselves with a Norwegian schnapps, (which was much more brutal when it comes to taste, after taste, burning, and after-after taste).

Sven came down to make sure that I was enjoying myself, and he made sure that I tried both kinds.

“The Norwegians are always competitive with us, and they want to make sure that everything they do it just that much better,” he said with a grin. “Now this Norwegian schnapps,” as he was showing me the bottle, “has been on a ship that has traveled all the way from Norway to Australia and back. They say that it makes it that much smoother because of all the waves that have been rocking it.”

Once he filled my shot glass to the top, everyone smiled at me and told me that I needed to sing a song. Lucky for me, Sven was kind enough to include a schnapps song on my directions, both in Swedish, and in English words that sounded similar to what was being sung in Swedish. I was still a little embarrassed so I asked everyone to join me once I got started. Here’s what I sang once everything got quiet:

“Hell and Gore

Chung hope father Allan, Allen Ley

Hell and Gore

Chung hope father Allen Ley

Oh handsome in the hell and tar

Hand hell are in a half and four

Hell and Gore….

SKOL (this was with the Norwegian one, I tried not to make a face)

… Chung hope father Allen Ley.”

It sounds like complete nonsense but it miraculously resembles what is actually being sung in Swedish.

Once the food was devoured and the songs began to cease, we said our goodbyes and headed home. What a perfect night this was, I couldn’t have imagined a better time! Thank you Sven and Genina for putting this feast together!