Crabbing with Emotion Graph
Chilling at the Outer Banks (NC natives abbreviate it OBX) for a bit before going back to Stanford! I've visited OBX countless times, and the one thing I've always wanted to do when coming here is go crabbing. It's one of those things I did once as a child (maybe when I was 7 or 8?) and have since always romanticized.
This time, we actually did it! We bought a pretty big crab trap for $20 some rope to haul in the trap, and some super cheap chicken for bait. Excitement level: 8/10.
We head out to a dock on the sound side of OBX that I think is actually owned by a waterfront restaurant (lol). Drop the trap in. Expectations: 10/10.
We were making casual bets on how many crabs we'd have when we hauled the trap up. Dad thought 3 or more (teaming with crabs lol), Mom thought 1 or 2, and I didn't quite know what to expect. Maybe a couple.
Waited like 10 minutes, hauled the trap up, and we got... nothing. Wow. Give it another 10. So we all just sat on the pier/deck, checking our phones/tablets. Classic.
10 minutes. Oh look, there's one! Pretty neat. Excitement level: 5/10. A little low because this wasn't nearly as fun as the crabbing I'd done before (we tied drumsticks to a wire and hauled them in. So exciting!). It wasn't even as fun as fishing, because you don't get the rush of excitement when you feel something tug on your pole. But still, a catch. Something to smile about.
Maybe waited about another 20 minutes, and got kind of impatient. Waiting with no possibility of huge excitement isn't that fun. So, we went and actually ate at the restaurant whose deck we were using. It was kind of overpriced, so I don't feel at all bad about using their pier to catch crabs. Contentness: 7/10.
We sat at a place where we could see our trap from the window. A family went over to the pier and actually lifted our trap out of the water! Nervousness: 4/10. Not too worried cause like, why would they really bother to take our stuff?
Regardless, Dad went to check on the trap. Upon returning, we were informed "There are two! And the second is about 30% larger than the first!" Nice. So about 1 crab per 30 minutes. You know, we should really eat slower. Amusement level: 7/10.
We slowly finished eating, talked a little, and resumed our tech savvy game (read: everyone on their mobile devices). I got a little bored and took out my computer to play around with ClojureScript on Node.js. Anticipation level: 0/10. Calm as ever :)
Parents eventually got out of the restaurant and informed me that they were going home to get a bucket for the crabs. Cool, some more time to play with code. Satisfaction: guaranteed.
The lady at the front of the restaurant kept on glaring at me because I was sitting in the waiting area to charge my computer while coding. Guilt level: 1/10. Whatever dude, I already ate at your restaurant. I'mma code.
Parents return, so we check the trap. Still two. Sigh. Oh well, put em in the bucket! Slight worry about how to get them out of the trap, but Dad just picked them up. Excitement level: 8/10.
We went over to Manteo (a town on an island between the mainland and OBX) to continue crabbing there, as we saw some dude catch a crab there earlier in the day. We were also hoping for luck as it was already dark outside, and blue crabs should be nocturnal.
We actually couldn't find the pier we wanted to be at in the dark. And in NC, it gets really dark (yes, I'm looking at you, California/Bay Area. Too many people, too many lights). As in, you hold your hand up to your face and you can't see it. You can however, hear a symphony of a couple thousand of bugs. #allnatural. North Carolina pride: over 9000.
So, we went over to Manteo's town pier/lighthouse thingy, and found a nice place to cast our trap there. It was well lit (which should help attract crabs) and quite a pleasant town with some bustlingness. That's a word. Happiness level: 9/10.
Mom tells us to look at a sign on the pier that said there could be contamination. It warned people to not eat clams, mussels, or oysters in the area as it could cause serious disease (presumably due to contamination). Uhhhh what? It was a nice place though, and we thought it was possible that the sign was just to stop fishermen, who can be a nuisance to a nice-ish place. Worry level: 5/10.
We dilly dallied for a bit, waiting for stuff to happen. We actually got a tiny crab in the trap within a couple minutes, but it wasn't worth trying to keep. Threw the trap back in the water. Later, Dad checked the trap again and said the baby crap somehow escaped, and that we had two catfish. Wut? (Actually, there are quite a few crab trap go-pro videos on Youtube and it's pretty common for fish to swim into the trap). We wait more. Parents took a walk, I continued to play with code.
We eventually got tired, so I called Dad to tell him we should just get the trap and go home. Parents were already like half a mile away so I packed my stuff and brought it out on the pier. Pulled the trap up, and voila! There were two decently large crabs! Very nice. We had two buckets so I dumped them into the second bucket, so we could know which were possibly contaminated. Satisfaction: 8/10. Satisfaction very high relative to prior performance, pulled down because I was hoping to catch a few more today.
Dad came back and asked me why I put them in separate buckets and immediately poured the new bucket into the old one. Classic. Worry level: 3/10. Ehhh, these crabs are probably fine. I hand Dad the wire I so neatly folded. Super proud of my work there. lol r u srs level: 10/10.
Came home and proceeded to wash the crabs. This was fun: we found some giant tongs to move the crabs between the bucket and the sink while washing. Enjoyment level: 11/10. Took a couple videos and snapchats of the experience. Because that's what matters in life... If you click the tongs in front of an aggressive crab, it'll try to fight you. Amusement level: 11/10.
Mom prepared boiling water with sliced ginger (gets rid of fishy taste, super common Chinese cooking technique for shellfish) and some sliced ginger in vinegar for dipping (also a pretty distinctly Chinese style of eating crab). Apparently crab is of cold nature and ginger is of warm nature so you need to eat ginger with crab to balance it out. The vinegar is just for kicks because I absolutely love vinegar. Or maybe not, I don't claim to know Chinese medicine or common Chinese health knowledge or whatever it is. I just eat stuff.
Next came actually killing the crabs. Anticipation level: 3/10. Remember it being easy peezy trivial. Throw em in, they instantly become orange, voila: ready to eat.
Wasn't so simple in practice. Ideally you grab the crabs from the butt so they can't claw at your tongs. However, the crab's body is angled such that the butt is angled downwards and it's hard to pick them up that way. So, I picked them up from the head side, and started moving them into the vat of boiling water that would be their death.
The first guy clawed on to my tong. Half of it got boiled and the other half was moving, until I somehow broke it loose and shoved it into the water when it became motionless. Fun level: 1/10. Guilt level: 8/10. Solemn level: 10/10. Rest in peace dude.
Those emotions lasted for all of maybe half a second. Time for the next one. Otherwise, they'll cook for different times and nobody wants to deal with that. This dude clawed on as well, and when I pushed him in the boiling water, both his claws fell off. Wut? Actually kind of concerned here. Asked my dad about it. "What, they've been fighting you all day, why would you expect his claws to stay on?" ...Ok... Discomfort/uneasiness/dirtyness level: rose from 1 to 3/10.
The rest of them eventually got boiled, one way or another. I was ready for anything at this point. Cooked em for 10 minutes, hauled em out, two per plate. Plate 1: crabs had green stuff along its seams, smelled kinda funky/fishy. Plate 2: crabs were orange all the way across, smelled great. Hmm, I think I know which one was contaminated! But I boiled them all in the same pot. Regret level: 5/10. Should have boiled them separately. Eh, whatever.
Wanted to throw the two green crabs away, but knew my Dad would get mad at me if I did. His perspective is we spent hours on those two dudes and you shouldn't waste them, as that is equivalent to wasting your effort and disrespecting your time. My perspective is I don't want to risk getting sick. His perspective is that they came out of the water, were robust, and were fine. My perspective is, this seems like a super common type of argument I've had with my Dad. Solution? I threw them away. Uneasiness level: 6/10. Yes, sloppily killing animals that I'm about to eat is less uncomfortable for me than human tension is. I happen to care about humans more than I do about other animals. Especially so if I am going to eat those animals anyways.
Start eating the crab. Took off all the legs and pried the body open. Ugh, this guck. Disgust level: 4/10. I'd been pampered by living in Maine and dealing with lobster tails -- all meat, no guts. Same experience with shrimp: no guts.
Finally cracked open a piece of meat on the side of the crab. Holy cow, this is the same meat that they use in crab cakes! *Dips it in vinegar/ginger. Wow. Sweet, delicious, and oh so satisfying. (yes, fresh blue crab meat is like lobster but sweet.) Guilt from killing the crabs: evaporated. Too happy, I forgot about it.
Offered crab to parents who were preparing to sleep. Denied -- they were preparing to sleep. Oh well. Overall feeling: happy, tasty, satisfying. The discomfort and work associated with it probably made it all the better. Experience was so good I decided to write a post about it.
Just let out a super disgusting fart. Regret level: oops, digestion. Hope those weren't contaminated! Eh, I should be fine. :)