On a bed of rice, roasted nori flakes and thinly sliced scallions were scattered. Then a big pile of crab meat and roe covered the rice, topped with a drizzle of sesame oil and roasted sesame seeds. Crab meat was already flavored in stew from the night before, so no salt was neceessary.
A bowl of rice takes only a few minutes to eat. Yet the bowl contains
- my trip to Chinatown and back with live blue crabs in a brownbag on a subway ride
- my 2 hour struggle with the crabs as I, armed with gloves, a pair of tongs on one hand and scissors on the other, tried to clean them
- my memory of mom's blue crab stew similar to doenjang jjigae (된장찌게; fermented bean paste stew with tofu and vegetables)
- another memory of how my sister would always carefully pick all the crab meat while everyone else finished dinner and savor them later mixed with rice and liquid from the stew
- ...which triggered me to pick the crab meat for an hour while watching TV, to result in the picture above.
Needless to say, that bowl of blue crab rice made whole two days of the blue crab journey worthwhile for me. Still, when my sister is missing from the blue crab dinner table, it's not as delicious as I remember it to be.
| KOREAN WORDS | ||||
| crab | 게 | (ge) | ||
| sesame | 깨 | (ggae) | ||
| sesame oil | 참기름 | ( cham gi ruem) | ||
