In Season: Spot Prawns
JUNE 18, 2007 - The best thing about eating in season is the gorging. Spot prawn season lasts for 80 days beginning sometime in May, and spot prawns (Pandalus platyceros) really are best eaten fresh. We went to the docks near Granville Island to buy our first of the season and fisherman Steve of the Black Heart gave us the kind of "pound and a half" that is really much larger.
The prawns were local as could be. "We fish them off Gibsons," Steve said. "On a clear day you can stand on the Burrard Street Bridge and almost see the fishing grounds." As we carried our heavy bag of prawns up the gangway, we knew we had to have some friends over to help us. Keri and Olive were the lucky recipients of our over-adundance; in the end even the four of us could barely eat them all.
Spot prawns eaten fresh are a challenging meal, because they are really fresh - alive until they are boiled. They are skittering critters when weighed out on the boat, and when resting in the fridge they will move when the doorlight comes on.
"Oh my God, I can't watch," Keri said as James moved them from fridge to pot. Luckily, James had nerve enough for the four of us. Two minutes later, they were done - and absolutely delicious, everyone agreed. Tender, pale pink, two to three inches of tail per prawn. We declined to suck the "tomalley" from the heads, because this is a cute word for inner organs, though it is a delicacy in many countries (it's called goong in Thailand and used in soups; the Japanese use it in sushi; the Spanish serve the crab version up proudly with a spoon). James tried a couple, just to gross us out I think. (He is, after all, an immature male - see below.)
As a warning to those who want to follow James's example too enthusiastically, last year Canadian Press reported with some incredulity: "While it seems hard to imagine the warning is necessary, Health Canada is urging people to limit their consumption of lobster tomalley - the green goo most people quickly scrap away as they get ready to sink their teeth into succulent lobster meat.
Turns out the tomalley, which serves as a liver and pancreas for a lobster, can sometimes contain a toxin known as paralytic shellfish poison. If ingested in large amounts, the toxin can cause tingling and numbing of the arms and legs, headaches, dizziness and nausea. In rare cases paralysis, respiratory difficult and even death can occur, if medical help isn't procured."
I looked at James with some concern, looking for odd symptoms, but assured myself that prawns are ever so much smaller than lobsters.
I comtemplated what I knew of the life of the spot prawn. Their full scope is four years long, and they have a chance to play both sides. They all begin as males and mature into a female for their final year. My moral qualms about ending their interesting, trans-gendered existence were both deepened and distracted by James telling me the latest in plant "intelligence" research, which I will leave to him to write about for another day. But I'll give you a hint - it's possible that in the future, PETA's rallying cry may have to include, Salad is murder. -ADS
