The Solution, or: Never shall the term crabby be received as an indictment!

* Warning *
If you are even remotely squeamish about eating seafood, don’t read this. This applies doubly if you have any sentimental attachment to crustaceans. Lexicon, ma chère, this means you. Possibly to be avoided too if you have a moral problem with gluttony. I hereby acknowledge that I deserve to be reborn as a crab in the Gulf of Thailand, as a crab whose coming of age will be marked by an innocent clamber into a crab pot and from thence into the wok. Que sera etc.

So, Kep, the Crab Capital of Crab-Craaaaazy-Cambodia. Just in case the waterfront crab market, crab shacks, and crab claws littered everywhere didn’t draw the fact that this is crab central to your attention, there’s a large concrete crab on the boardwalk to really hammer the point home.

Of course, I considered it nothing less than my Duty to fully apprise myself of the merits of the crab. I flatter myself that I have discharged this Duty with some merit. Yes, acting in the best interests of my sweet-as-crab sisterellas and grandfather, I have eaten enough crab to grow a set of pincers, and I can state, without hesitation, that Crabs are Sweeter, More Tender, and generally Better than Lobsters. Yes, they are a pain in the arse to eat, but the effort is worth it. Your meal is interspersed with a regular series of digestive pauses. To Crab, I say, to Crab!

Anywaaay, the crab. Let me count the ways. If the process of separating crab meat from crab shell doesn’t appeal, it’s possible in some quarters to order crab soup, which here is served with mushrooms which look like, but are not, golden enokis. This is simple enough – a good crab stock, thickened cornflour, with flaked crab meat and mushies stirred in and an egg beaten through to finish it off. Think Chinese chicken and corn soup and substitute crab and mushrooms. Keen crackers can also order crab soups which are full of unshelled crab. Grrrrreat. I hear plenty of crab and corn soup is waiting for me in Vietnam.

I was warned off the crabs at the main beach of Kep by my Austro-Bulgarian agents and their reports of surcharges for serviettes and seating and stuck to the crab markets. Main course crab dishes here are variations on a single theme. Crabs, with a 5-10cm carapace are flash-boiled (I told you this wasn’t for the squeamish) and chopped in half. The goop is removed and they are chucked into a wok with oil, soy, and handfuls of whatever delightful aromatics you select. For the statisticians, crabs retail at the markets for 15000 r, just under US$4 per kilo. Generally, you are served a huge plate of crabs with some entirely redundant rice on the side. If you’re lucky, you are given a bowl of hot water in which to clean the muck from your fingertips. From here on, it’s a matter of pulling the crabs apart, extracting as much goodness as possible from the claws and sucking sauce from the shells before picking away at the carapace. Very late Roman Empire. The crab meat is indeed incredibly sweet and cooked as it is here, light years away from toughness. If I develop an addiction to opiates, I will surely be plagued by visions of cruel crabs, scuttling over my inert form. For now, my crabby hallucinations are of the order of delight and satisfaction. The Crab with Ginger on Serendipity Beach in Sihanoukville was mighty fine but it was upstaged by Kep’s Crab with Green Peppercorns, possibly the Best Thing Ever. Kampot is famous for pepper so the Crab with Green Peppercorns is a particularly worthy combination of two local specialties.

I took this photograph with four people looking on. They were very impressed with the picture in the box, deeming it a worthy likeness, and I promised them that I would send my friends to the stall. So: Kep Crab Markets, second stall down from the Kampot end of the market: Go there. Fresh mango for dessert. If anybody is game to order the Fish with Distril, please tell me what the hell it is. The Crab with Green Peppercorns has made me a vulnerable woman. I would renounce my lifelong strident aversion to marriage for the man who could cook this dish. I would undergo religious conversion. I would emigrate. I would sell my soul. I would eat my own liver, provided that it was sautéed with peppercorns. Etc etc. Fortunately, someone has recommended a cooking school in Battambang called, heh heh, Smoking Pot, so I am going to go there and find out how to make this dish and thus maintain my independence. Fronds of green peppercorns, one of my favourite things, slices of onion, shallots, smashed cloves of garlic, another of my favourite things, and loads of little crablets. Yes, quite a solid candidate for the Best Thing Ever.

Elsewhere in the crab market, I encountered a crab dish with chilli, doused with a thick, sweet and sour chilli and dried prawn paste and lots of garlic which was, predictably, delectable. I didn’t get around to ordering the Crab with Hot Oil but if my spying is accurate, the crab is given the same hot oil treatment as the Hot Oil Noodles at the Victoria St Dumplingeria (nostalgic sigh).

Other noteworthy features of the crab-eating life:

You can see the crab-pots being hauled out of the ocean as you eat. Food miles here can be calculated in feet.

The servings are stupendously enormous. When eating alone – watch out, this will shock some of you – I have taken to requesting that I be given a serving smaller than the standard small serve. The picture above is of a smaller-than-small sized meal. It’s true, I have struggled to eat a five dollar plate of crab on my own. I kid you not.
It’s possible to hire a boat and cruise out to an island and eat crab as per above under coconut palms.
There are plenty of hammocks to aid digestion.
Some minor dosage of alcohol seems to make the process even more pleasant. As all the white wine I’ve drunk here has tasted like stale vinegar, I’ve found the local beers a more than sound accompaniment.

I apologise if this all sounds obnoxious and insufferably smug. It would be wrong not to share the joy though, wouldn’t it? No doubt when I post this, I will have arrived in Phnom Penh, been mugged, contracted some uncurable tropical disease and somehow be in a state of deep physical or psychic hurt. The Gulf is probably full of noxious heavy metals. Crab flu will, in all probability, be the next deadly pandemic you’ll read about. Be that as it may, I am now a qualified crab aficionado, drinking a very reasonable margarita, and watching the sun set.