A great cheat for crab…
One of the subjects of conversation for all crab lovers is the price of white crab meat. My friend mentioned in the story below prided herself with having an ‘excellent source’.
Brown meat is considerably cheaper but does not provide the clean fresh taste in pasta that the white meat alone does. Extracting the meat from whole crabs will be cheaper but is very messy and time-consuming. White handpicked crab meat is very expensive – I’ve seen it sell at between £30 – £75 per kilo. However, a little crab goes a long way. I would say 100g – 125g would be sufficient per person. This makes it better value – but if you want to save some more of the costs I have found an excellent cheat.
Of all fish, hake is a little crab-like, in that it will break-up into a soft fibrous texture. At around £16/kilo, hake is certainly cheaper than crab. I combined hake with crab in the proportion of
Fond memories
Food and recipes are full of stories. Each story conveys a sense of place and helps keep our experiences and memories alive. Like the time the chef made a mistake with the chilli creating a dish too hot for anybody to eat and caused a heated debate with the waiter, or the Thanksgiving mother dropped the pumpkin pudding and scooped up the edible parts and justified the diminished portions by saying it was very rich, or the time the family enjoyed the taste of fully ripened Tuscan tomatoes made into a raw sauce on pici pasta – in Tuscany… These stories add to the things we collect and treasure in our lives – they define who we are and help us imagine our world.
Crab linguine is a trigger for these kind of memories. Memories of a dear Italian friend, now living abroad. We enjoyed the long drives in the country to visit her and her family. We always seemed to arrive at lunchtime – and crab linguine always seemed to be on the menu!
Lunch was served the way all Italians understand: without fuss, with great generosity and with natural flair. This aptitude with food would have stood our host in good stead, as her house was always full of visiting relatives and friends.
Needless to say, the crab linguine was delicious, very convivial – and utterly memorable.
ble.