Fish Story
When I was a child, my favorite thing about going to one of the larger supermarkets in our area was the tankful of live lobsters next to the fish counter. Although we ate plenty of seafood, no one in my family is much of a lobster fan, so my only encounters with the creatures was when I could view this small colony in their tank. I was fascinated by the sheer improbability of the lobster -- how could anything so insectoid, so frankly buglike, be so large? They seemed (and still do) like creatures from another planet.
Last week I was meeting Gavin for dinner in Chinatown, and I walked down the Bowery from Grand Street, looking in the windows of the many Chinese seafood restaurants in the area. Many of them have an elaborate array of tanks containing live things which, presumeably, you can specify for your supper. I've seen them before, of course, but I had never noticed the true variety in some of the larger places -- as if small aquaria had been founded in the lobbies of the restaurants. One place had a tank in which lobsters coexisted sluggishly with fierce-looking, dragonlike beings that resembled the superpoisonous stonefish or lionfish. Another had a shallow tank of clams -- razor clams? -- each of which extended a long foot which curled like a thick white strap around the circumference of the tank. And it was common to see a few large, unidentifiable fish lording it over a little kingdom of shrimp, who would sometimes be seen to race around the tanks in a kind of miniature NASCAR competition.
Two things most window displays had in common -- first, a greater or lesser number of crabs whose carapaces were apparently decorated with a charming red bow. There may have been something practical about this seemingly aesthetic touch. Second, each restaurant sports a special crab -- a horribly large specimen, who crouches malevolently in his own tank, like some kind of grotesque arthropod deity.
Dinner was delicious. I couldn't quite bring myself to order crab.
Posted by B T at April 08, 2001 04:55 PM