Four crabs from the cold firth alive for a shilling. The largest reared in the pot, in spite of the fierce water, but soon we cracked his limbs with our teeth and wheedled with spoons and fingers for the last shreds of flesh from the crannies of his briny body. In that brittle maze I found no features to remind me of our brains, our livers or our smooth bellies, yet doubtless their functions were held by some part of the paste of his cavities. Spread, soup and risotto – only the gills were rejected. In the days we ate him I did not forget his moment on the floor to amuse the baby, when she gloated at the slow clash of his last menace, nor that shape which made me think of a soft soldier fried in the cockpit of a tank. Angus Calder |