Eat 'Em and Weep

by Paulette Licitra

Lobster, crab, shrimp, clams, mussels, oysters. You either melt with desire upon hearing those words, scrunch your nose in disgust, or feel completely indifferent.

I am from the awed and reverent school. My eyes linger longingly at shellfish window displays in fish stores; I peruse seafood sections of cookbooks just to imagine the taste of the concoctions and drool over the dazzling photographs. I even like the Red Lobster commercial.

Not everyone feels this way. I have one friend who cringes at the sight of lobster-eating. He sees it as the showdown between human and Godzilla. Even his tame-tasting flounder has to be battered and deep fried so no trace of fish remains.

Maybe it's a cultural thing. I grew up on Long Island surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Great South Bay. My father, my sister, my uncle and I were avid shellfish eaters, while my mother and my aunt tended to back off. Too messy! they'd say.

Messy! That seems to be the biggest complaint among non-shellfish eaters. They think it's too much dirty work for a minuscule piece of meat. What's all the excitement about, they wonder.

Being part of an Italian American family (southern Italian), meant extra opportunities for seafood.

It's hard to explain. The texture and the taste of the wild sea seems to be concentrated in that dense food. And it actually is. After all, shellfish are scavengers, they eat up a representative sampling of the entire sea. Eating it makes you feel as unruly as the ocean -- fluid, sensual, lucid, and -- salty.

It's in my blood. I started by admiring any life from the sea. When I was little my father and uncle would take me to the Captree Boat Basin when large fishing party boats returned. At the pier, sunburned fisherman in rubber to their thighs would display their catches of fluke, flounder, bluefish, and striped bass. I learned to marvel at the size and quantity of the fish -- the large boats, the sea air, the smell of salt, fish and seaweed, and the wind stinging my face -- awakening it to the world of the sea.

As a teenager my friends and I would take the ferry to Fire Island and go clamming on the bay side. Small rising bubbles in the sand would create tiny holes indicating where to dig. We'd use our feet as shovels and burrow into the sand until we felt the hard shell, then plunge our hands in to drag out the clam. Creating a small fire from soda cups and driftwood, we'd set the clams nearby until they popped open. Then -- we'd eat them, the freshest clams in the world.

Unfortunately, my husband is of the indifferent variety. He thinks crabs and lobsters look like large insects (sure they do, but a little ugliness never hurt anyone). During soft shell crab season he'll concede to a dual-dish-dinner. He'll have cod, pan steak, or Kielbasa; and I'll have my most favorite, delectable, manna-from-heaven-food: soft shell crab. I simply saute them in a little olive oil, parsley, red crushed pepper, lemon and a dash of white wine. Watching me eat, he shakes his head don't get it.

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