THE LATERAL HISTORY OF CRUSTACEANS

As related by Sid Kipper

When you think of Sheringham you think of crabs - at least, I do.  But when you think of crabs you think of Cromer.  That's because fishmongers can't spell Sheringham.

I decided to start with crabs, but they're very hard to pin down.  And that's not just because the pins won't go through their thick shells.  You see, they don't really count as fish, and they don't really count as animals.  All anyone can say about them is that they're a bit like lobsters, which doesn't really help much, because all they can say about lobsters is that they're a bit like crabs!

They're what's known as crustaceans.  The 'crust' bit refers to the shells, and the 'acean' bit is anybody's guess.  Male crabs are all called Jack, which must be a bit confusing at social events.  Mind you, female crabs are all called hens, which must be even more confusing.  I mean, imagine you're a baby crab, crawling around on the sea bed, and someone tells you that your mother was a hen!  It probably explains why crabs are famous for being bad-tempered - or crabby.  The other possible reason for that is that people don't generally see crabs when they're at their best.  People mainly see them when they've just been caught, hauled out of the sea, and are about to be boiled alive.  I reckon they've got an excuse for being bad-tempered under those circumstances.

"The word 'crab' comes from the Old English 'crabba', which is equivalent to the Old Norse 'krabbi'.  Both are related to the Low German 'krabben', meaning to scratch, or crawl."

I knew a woman who was related to a low German once.  He didn't crawl, but he did scratch a lot.

Anyhow, Crabs don't make especially good pets, for a number of reasons.  For a start they like to live in quite deep water, which means you'd have to take the coal out of the bath to find somewhere to keep them.  They're not good with children, and they're useless with those treadmill wheel things you get for hamsters.  If you put them in one of those they just walk straight out of it again, sideways.  And they do tend to nip the hand that feeds them.

"Male fiddler crabs have one enlarged claw to wave at and attract females."

Ah, now I used to try waving at and attracting females, but all I ever attracted were a lot of irate boyfriends, so I gave it up as a bad job.  Well, it was a very bad job, actually, because it was unpaid.

Now, so far I've been talking mainly about the sort of crabs that most people know intimately, and those are properly called edible crabs.  But there's loads of other sorts, some of which you can eat, but you can't properly call them edible.  For instance, there's the hermit crab.  They don't have a proper shell of their own, so they borrow shells from other things, like whelks.  Where the whelks go to live I don't know, and I'm not bothered, either.  I can't stand whelks, even though people go fishing for them like nobody's business.  Well, not nobody's business.  It's their business, obviously.  But the point is that I've been down to where they boil the whelks at Whelk-next-the-Sea, and as far as I'm concerned the hermit crab is the only bit worth eating.  If you've never tried one I can tell you they're very sweet.  And I still can, even if you have tried one.

The crabs you get under rocks at the sea side are European shore crabs, so what they're doing in this country I don't know.  They're rather small, and you can't eat them.  Well, that's not quite true.  You can eat them.  But if you do you'll wish you hadn't.  We used to call them ghillies when I was a boy, which was alright then because we didn't know any better.  Now we know not to call them that because they might easily be confused with Scottish gamekeepers, who are also inedible.

"The robber crab, 'Birgus latro', grows large enough to climb palm trees and feed on coconuts.'

Which is why we don't get them in this country, because the people who run the coconut shies would never put up with them.

"According to the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, a Crab-stick is a stick made of the wood of the crab-apple"

Now I can believe that.  In fact I could never quite put my finger on exactly what they tasted like before, but now I can see it clearly.  The wood of the crab-apple is exactly what they taste like.  Well, the ones Ernie Spratt had for his seafood buffet after the dominoes final in the Old Goat Inn did, but they probably weren't top of the range.  I don't think Ernie knows what top of the range means.

"A Crab-catcher is any of several species of Herons which feed on small Crabs.  On the other hand a Crab-eater is an occasional name for the Little Bittern"

And, on the other other hand, the Little Bittern is also a sort of a Heron, so all in all you pays your money and you gets what you're given, as far as I can see.  But you probably want to know more about lobsters.  Not to mention all the other sorts of crustaceans there are, like crayfish, woodlice, barnacles, prawns and shrimps.

Actually, I know a story about shrimps, which is more than most people can say.  It happened at Wells-next-the-Sea, which I think I already mentioned.  Now, they do a bit of shrimping out of Wells, or, at least, they used to.  First they catch the shrimps.  Then, while they're waiting for the tide, and on the way into the quay, they cook the shrimps on board the boat.  Well, one day they came in, and there was this woman standing on the quay.  And she called out to them.  "I say", she said, "How far do you go out for those shrimps?"  Well, everybody knows they go just outside the harbour.  Everybody but her, that was.  So they looked her over, and then they said "We go186 miles off the coast of Holland".  Which is true.  And she was very impressed.  And that's the story.  Well, I never said it was a good story, did I?

Now there's lots of different sorts of prawns and shrimps, but they only come in the one flavour, which is ready salted.  They don't even come in prawn cocktail flavour, although I'm not all that surprised, really.  I tried a prawn cocktail once, but it didn't work for me at all.  As far as I could taste it was just a good pint of mild and bitter ruined.

"The Norway lobster or Dublin Bay prawn is sold as 'scampi'."

So, you see, when you eat scampi you don't even know if it's lobster or prawn.  Mind you, if you eat it in the Old Goat Inn it's probably crab-sticks anyway!

Crayfish are another sort of crustacean.  They're what's known as a fresh water delicately.  Over in Thursford they named the pub after one.  Well, I assume it was just one.  You can't tell with fish, can you.  They're like sheep.  You don't know if they're singular or plural.  Mind you, the Thursford one must have been singular, otherwise they wouldn't have named the pub after it, would they.  Pub names make you wonder, don't they?  I mean, there they were, they had this pub, and they didn't know what to call it.  So how did they come up with The Crayfish?  Was it on the menu?  If so, I bet it's not on now.  So perhaps they should re-name it The Scampi.  I suppose not a lot happens in Thursford.

Finally I'll deal with lobsters, although crayfish are also lobsters, but not as we know it, Jim.  I'll leave woodlice and barnacles for another day, and, if you take my advice, so will you.

The word 'lobster' comes from Old English, and is corruptly adapted from the Latin word 'locusta', or locust, which originally meant a lobster.

Well, I know that years ago they couldn't tell a hawk from a harnser, but fancy not being able to tell a lobster from a locust!  I mean, how corrupt can you get?

Anyhow, lobsters used to be just for posh people in fancy restaurants, who wouldn't know a lobster pot if it ate them.  But nowadays anybody can eat them, if you see what I mean.  Lobsters have ten legs, only two of them aren't legs at all, so I don't know why they say they are in the first place.  These two legs that aren't legs are claws, and you want to watch out for them, because they can be dangerous when they go on the rampage.  I've seen crab boats coming in with lobsters that have broken loose and climbed to the top of the mast.  Well, you wouldn't want a crowd of them to swoop on you from up there, would you?  It'd be like a plague of - ah, now I think I see where the confusion with locusts came in.

Now lobsters have a lot to do with the military.  There's various bits of armour what were called things like lobster gauntlets and lobster tails.  Then there was lobster box, which was a name for a barracks, due to lobster being a name for a British soldier.  And then there was the square bashing known as the lobster quad drill.  They even called policemen raw lobsters, due to the colour of their uniforms.

Lobsters communicate by means of a serrated pad at the base of their antenna, the 'sound' being picked up by sensory nerves located on hair-like outgrowths on their fellow lobsters, up to 180 feet away.

The other way they communicate is by giving you a nasty nip.  Which is not to be confused with that woman, Nasty Nip, who was on that Trunch Wireless programme, Big Sister.  Anyhow, lobsters mostly come out at night, and crawl around, scavenging, and eating anything which comes their way.  Which is a bit like Nasty Nip after all, come to think of it.  They can also swim, by using their tails, although I'd like to see Nasty Nip do that.

The lobsters caught off the British coast are common lobsters, or 'Homarus gammarus'.  The spiny lobster, 'Palinurus vulgaris', is also found.

So, you see, British lobsters aren't so posh, after all.  They can be common or vulgar, but not both.  Or is it not both at the same time?

Anyhow, let me up sum about crustaceans.  They come in a variety of colours, sizes and finishes.  They live in the sea or on the land, but not in the air, unless you count locusts, which I don't, because there's far too many of them.  Some are edible, but they'll all eat you, given the chance.  And you can say what you like about them, anyway, because they're all more thick-skinned than mother's sausages.