Critters!

Contrary to appearances, the cookbook challenge has been progressing fairly well in March and April. Less successful, this time, have been my efforts at writing up my attempts. The Larousse buckwheat pancakes remain unblogged and photos of my sticky toffee pudding triumph languish unloved on my computer. The full write up will have to wait for a bi-monthly summary at the end of April. Instead, this is a note on one of my favourite books, which was put to use in respect of one of the craziest things one can cook: crayfish.

Crayfish occupy a special place in the Fork household. By opting to wed in sunny South Africa, we inadvertently started a trend in gluttonous one-upmanship. It all started the day after our wedding, when one of our friends decided a steak was not enough to satisfy his hangover-induced appetite, and chose to chase his meal with a whole crayfish on the side. At this point, I should point out that a South African crayfish is not one of these snappy, perky little Northern hemisphere blighters. A South African crayfish is a prehistoric, seafaring monster which more than makes a meal in it own right. What followed our friend's bold move was a week of everyone else trying to outdo him, which for all of us, at some point, meant eating a crayfish along with a steak. Fools.

So you can imagine my delight when I managed to lay my hands on a seething, hissing mass of the dark blue monsters.

When faced with a pot of creatures determined not to be eaten and with limited knowledge of how to dispatch said monsters whilst retain precious fingertips, the only course of action was to consult an authority: the River Cottage Fish Book.

Like its meatier sibling, I rarely follow the recipes in the Fish Book and yet, even so, it is always at the front of my bookshelf. Its frequent use is down to its status as an invaluable source of information about sourcing, preparing and storing fish. Taken together, these two books have probably taught me as much about cooking as the printed word can. For example, I know that I like my beef cooked to four degrees cooler than the Meat Book recommends as rare. I just don't know what temperature that is.

It did the trick with the monsters, rendering fighting angry blue beasts into pink-hued morsels. It even gave me a recipe for a special mayonnaise to have with them. All that was missing was the steak.