Kräftskiva

[Tiresias]

This may be an odd one, but I know there are a few Scandis and foodies on here. We’ve got 2 kilos (frozen, I admit) of these waiting for a sunny day.



Should be the first Wednesday in August, but that was a rubbish day.



That’s from our house in Tyresö a year or two ago (actually more than, given what's gone on). Note the wonderful crayfish lamp decoration.

And these. Traditional, but god knows why.



So does anyone else here like the beggars?

 

[AndyP]

Never tried them, but I am sure I would. The saltwater variety, langoustine I do enjoy but I am not at all sure if have ever seen freshwater crayfish over here.
in fact I am not at all sure what they are called. Dictionary says “écrevisse” but that seems to be a generic term for all types of crayfish.

 

[NickM]

That looks like a feast!

I think they called them Yabbies in Australia (as in Yabby Creek in Home and Away). I had some over there and they were good.

UK waterways are being overrun by the North American crayfish. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wild...ntipedes-and-millipedes/white-clawed-crayfish

Perhaps we should be eating them to extinction…

 

[clogs]

AndyP.....
certainly loads in the Charante......
near us there was a lake one side of the road and a stream on the other.....
certain times of the year they would walk accross the road.....
u could collect kilo's without getting wet.....hahaha....

I bet all the rivers in FR has em.....easy to trap.....

our old w/mill...when the river dried up we dug a deep hole in the bed for them to stay alive.....

Shame I can't eat shell fish.....except cockles....

 

[AndyP]

the way to go with translating flora and fauna is to go back to the latin

Freshwater crayfish = l'écrevisses à pieds blancs or Autropotamobius pallipes

We do not have the right sort of fresh water rivers around here. All marshes. But I will investigate further.

 

[novocaine]

Refuse to try.

Before you jump on that, my reaction to crab and lobster was so violent as to leave me with a live long refusal to try any further shellfish. The unknown trial of prawn in a Chinese meal a few years ago confirms a similar reaction.

 

[Tiresias]

What I’ve been able to get is écrevisses rouges des marais. Procambarus clarkii, or Louisiana crayfish. From China, where they mostly come from these days.

I have a vague memory that they were deliberately introduced into France (Loire- Atlantique?) in the 80’s. And it is now illegal to transport them or sell them. I think. In the UK the European crayfish is protected, but you can take signal crayfish.

Signal crayfish are pacificasticus leniusculus. And a pest, that, as has been said, drives out/kills the European crayfish (astacus astacus).

Yabbies are the brilliantly named cherax destructor.

They all taste much the same though, i.e. delicious. But the yield is so low (‘bout 15%) that you do need a lot. Which is why you have västerbottenpaj to go with them. But that is another story.

And it looks like tomorrow will be fine. Kräftor out of the freezer and wodka in…

 

[droogs]

yuck

 

[heimlaga]

My father used to catch them when he was young. He sold his catch to a local trader who "exported" them to Helsingfors where posh people ate them. We may still have the old hoop nets somewhere. They were baited with rotten fish.
Once my parents tried to eat some crayfish that they had caught but they decided fish was better.

By the way the term "exported" referes to the fact that though Helsingfors which the Finns call Helsinki has been made our capital we Swedes in Österbotten have never given our concent.......... the Finns down there are foreigners and a peace treaty from 1809 made by a bunch of kings and lords without our concent cannot change that.
Not that we don't like foreigners. Most Finns are nice fellows and good neigbours but foreigners none the less.

 

[Tiresias]

Well.

The good Lord smiled upon us, and the hecatomb of crayfish took place.



And lo, we watched the sun go down. And found a place for Clarky the crayfish.



Helan Går may have been sung. Badly…

Oh, Heimlaga I'm interested in what you say - I thought the catching of kräftor was strictly controlled since about the 1960s (of course I don't known how old you are). As to your nationality Finnish/Swedish: I'm Scottish. I can't really offer a view. Act of Union, grumble, grumble.

 

[heimlaga]

In Finland I think the strict crayfish fishing regulations came to be in the 70-ies or possibly 80-ies.
When my father was in his teens in the early 60-ies crayfish was free for every landowner along the rivers though when I got old enough to have some clue about the world around me in the late 80-ies and early 90-ies they were already pretty much off limits.

 

[Chris101]

That looks like a feast!

I think they called them Yabbies in Australia (as in Yabby Creek in Home and Away). I had some over there and they were good.

UK waterways are being overrun by the North American crayfish. https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wild...ntipedes-and-millipedes/white-clawed-crayfish

Perhaps we should be eating them to extinction…

You need a licence to trap the US ones in the UK to avoid people trapping in areas that are home to the threatened native species. However if you do manage to net a few of the US red signal crayfish strictly by mistake of course, it's actually illegal to put them back in the river. Bacon and catfood are excellent baits. I have had a licence previously but considering that 95 percent of the UK white tails are extinct I'd encourage anyone sensible to check the DEFRA website for white tail locations then crack on trapping without a licence. Red signals are an invasive destructive species that need eating. :twisted: