Trapper Arne’s Crayfish Newsletter for November 2009

The CRAYFISH TALE

CRAYFISH AND THE BIBLE bad after they are dead unless you cook Those of us who read the Bible now and them or freeze them properly, it certainly then, have surely stumbled upon some of made some sense to tell the old Palestine the books in the old testament that tell inhabitants to be careful about such what to eat and what to avoid. Coming out creatures. Poorly cooked or out-of season of captivity in Egypt, Moses talked often seafood can cause food poisoning about good food, clean food, and unclean (especially when the red tide is blooming). such. Among many other statements he Nevertheless, shellfish remain forbidden in quoted God saying: "Every moving thing Jewish Kosher cuisine, Islamic Halal, and that is alive shall be food for you; I give all the diets of a few Christian sects, such as to you, as I gave the green plant. Only you Seventh-Day Adventism. We, who live shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its among freezers, refrigerators and plenty of blood.” (Exodus) easily purchased ice of different shapes, should still bear this in mind. This simple However, as we scrutinize the rule is valid even today, several thousand Bible further for foods that were allowed, years after the words were written in the we find increasingly many regulations that Bible, that when you cook crustaceans, both surprise us modern eaters as well as don’t cook dead ones unless you know confuse us. We all know about the ban on how long they have been dead. As the old pork in the Bible. We may also agree that Jews had neither ice nor refrigeration of as some swine herds have the tendency to modern kind, it was certainly a good rule to develop trichinosis, that ban may have follow. Then. been justified. Then, at least. So, it is clear what the Bible says But then we come to some admoni- about crayfish; those critters with “many” tions such as: Whatsoever goeth legs. Yet, if we go rapidly into the annals of upon the belly, and whatsoever the Middle Ages and check on habits con- goeth upon all four, or whatsoever cerning crayfish eating we find some rather hath more feet among all creeping conflicting information. It is well known things that creep upon the earth, that Swedish royalty in the 15th and 16th them ye shall not eat; for they are centuries, King Erik of the Vasas e.g., en- an abomination. (Leviticus 11:9-12) joyed eating crayfish, and raised more of Does that refer to crayfish by any them in the moats of their castles. But it is chance? Somewhere I read that whatever also apparent that at the same time the has ‘many legs’ is also an abomination. lower classes, country people, farmers and That surely includes crayfish as well as peons out in the boonies, stayed away lobsters, crabs and shrimp which are all from crayfish. And why? Those who have decapods. They have ‘many’ legs, exactly studied the situation are sure that it was ten of them including the claws. simply because the lower classes took Again, knowing how quickly crusta- their biblical learning, whatever there was ceans, which includes crayfish, lobsters, of it, more fundamentally and followed its crabs and shrimp, decay and simply go admonitions about “crawling critters with many legs” to the letter. So they stayed foods that are “abominations”. Checking away from them while kings and queens the regulations you find that you, if you are and all their followers merrily slurped cray- a follower of the Old Testament, must stay fish brine and downed the tail meat with away from foods from e.g. dogs and foxes, beakers of mead, or whatever they drank mules and horses, cats and lions. No in those days. problem for most of us today to follow those admonitions. But then they also for- King Erik Vasa was a gourmet and bade eating catfish, eel and turbot, aba- had developed a taste for crayfish while lone, oysters and scallops, to say nothing traveling in Germany. There, the savory at- of squid, dolphins and seal. Some would tributes of crustaceans had long been ap- object to not being able to eat caviar from preciated by the monks of some monaster- the sturgeon. Marine critters without fins ies. Actually, the monks’ appetite for cray- and scales were classified as an fish was increased by the Catholic Church abomination and only animals that had traditions of staying away from meat during hoofs and were cloven-footed and chewed lent. Indeed, we read stories about certain the cud were acceptable. monasteries consuming thousands of cray- fish during lent. Maybe the monks applied Once royalty began to eat crayfish, the smorgasbord-view of cherry picking the aristocracy and the middle class soon what they liked in the Bible, which clearly followed in their footsteps. Soon also fun- forbade eating animals with more than four damentalist interpretations of the Bible be- legs. But, they must have reasoned, as came rare and before long, the crayfish these crustaceans dwelled in the water was a sought-after food among the well- among the fishes, they must be fishes of a heeled, whereas farmers and fishermen sort, and therefore acceptable to eat on still couldn’t care less. At least not until Fridays. Fridays had long been set aside they found they could make money by for meatless sustenance by Catholics, and selling crayfish to the well heeled upper cloister members were, at that time at crust. Soon the habit of emulating the up- least, all Catholics. And crayfish they ate. per classes seeped down to all classes, and today, crayfish eating is accepted by The Bible is not just picking on all no matter what the Bible says. crayfish eaters when numbering all the

CRAYFISH MATERIAL WANTED

The Crayfish Tale Newsletter you are just reading has been issued for al- most five years. Recently I have often been at a loss about what subject to cov- er, a situation increasingly occurring as time goes by. Please, if you have some favorite ideas about crayfish topics or articles concerning our common interest, drop me a line about it to help me continue this series of newsletters.

Trapper Arne