Mini Post - Markets and Mayhem

The Wholesale Market and some new friends!
From the left - Shell from Ireland, Anne from the UK and Ben from Aussie.

This morning a group of us went to the Wholesale Market. It is, funnily enough on 'Wholesale Market Street'. They are very literal here with street names, which is great. They have 'Television Street' where the main TV station offices are, Stadium Roundabout... Anyway, the market was a bit hard to figure out, and its was all based on rumours and the little I could find on blogs on the internet. We wanted to get there early, so we met a 8. Upon arrival, all we could see were piles of herbs and these tuber shaped green whosie-whatsits. Of course, the little english the vendors knew was money related, so when you tried to ask if they had spinach or coriander it got a bit confusing. I accidentally bought flat parsley at first, but at 2 Riyal (NZ 70 cents) I was not too concerned. We also bought some grass, that we decided is 'onion grass' and one of the tubers that i am fairly convinced is a unusual coloured cucumber. We also shared a box of watermelon, as you cannot by them separately, and they others bought a box of dates for 10 Riyal (Just less than $4) that i think will last them all year.

Its hard to tell but the fish behind me are
absolutely massive!

Then we ventured to the fish market, which was intimidating. Vendors would hold up fish as big as a child and try to convince you to buy it. I am no huge fan of fish, and none of it was filleted, so i didn't get any of the little ones, but I got some massive prawns, that have already been eaten (nomnomnom) and 4 crabs, which totally freaked me out and I will NOT be buying again, despite their deliciousness. More about those later! After the fish, we went to the meat market and very smartly walked out again - as the place was filled with battery hens, and as far as I could tell, you selected the one you wanted and they 'prepared' it for you. Can't get much fresher, or more brutal than that! I got a bit upset seeing that, and think I will stick to buying mine at the supermarket, even if I have to pay more.

Supermassive fish and other
massive-but-not-in-the-same-league fish

Unfortunately, after we got home, I went back on the internet and think we missed a huge amount of the market - I have a feeling there was an inside vege part for the stuff that would spoil in the heat and a spice part and a plant part, and perhaps more. The people I went with, however, were keen to make it a weekly trip, so I might have more to say next weekend!




Now I would like to do a segment entitled:

The Horrors of Cooking and Eating Crabs

Spurred by the deliciousness I decided to buy half a kilo of crab (which was 4 crabs). At the market, i was all keen and eager, thinking only of my tummy, yet, upon arrival home I proceeded to remove the crabs from their wee plastic bag and realised for the first time just how 'real' they looked. I use 'real' for lack of a better word. By this i mean to highlight the difference between seeing the animal just how it was while it was living, and seeing the meat separated from bone/skin/exoskeleton etc. and neatly packaged up for your consuming needs. You could even hold the crab and shake it, and you could swear it was alive. This is the precise moment when I realised I would have to deal with them before eating them. So, as a true member of my generation, I sat down and dutifully watched a series of YouTube videos, instructing me on how to do it, and then cooked them up. With a massive feeling of trepidation I ripped off the upper shell and pulled off the gills and yanked off the jawbone and that weird tail flap thing and then looked at what was left and realised that it was totally not worth it. The mouth part had stabbed me and the gross yellow goo was on my white skirt (the nice man from Pottery Barn said it was crab butter) and the amount of meat on what was left was about a teaspoon full and filled with crunchy bits I'm sure you are not meant to eat. The legs, for the most part, were too small to get any real meat out of, and I know you are meant to suck on them, but by this stage I was so grossed out I just couldn't do it. So, I had about half a mouth full of meat and my kitchen looked like it was at the bottom of a swamp. What i did manage to get was delicious, and i must say, perfectly cooked for a first timer. I admit to wondering, if i had gotten a larger crab if the meat at the end may have outweighed the process to get it, but as of right now, it is highly unlikely I will ever try this again. Also my hands smell and I've washed them so much they have gone pruney.

Totally unrelated side note: Did you know that they recently discovered the reason your hands and feet go pruney is to create better friction when you hold on to something in wet weather? Cool aye!

Below - the photographic process. After I started hacking into them it was to messy to document.

Crabs and prawns in my sink.

Cooked Crabs! Success! Kind of.

Boiling the crabs. The air leaked
out and looked like they were
blowing bubbles :(