650SEK per kilo of black - turns red and delicious

This year the cray fish premiere is 8th of August – and that’s something very special to us Swedes – another good reason for drinking ice-cold snaps. One of our  biggest food festivals.

Sweet water crayfish – we have to have in every August and with it the beer, snaps, strong cheese and a nice bread – and to get really silly – mostly down to the snaps. One shot for every crayfish head we break off … will result in some real silliness and sickness the next day. Also they should be eaten outdoors under the mad August moon. *smile. This is top class finger food – messy, but worth it. We wear silly paper hats and bibs … because of messiness.

The original River crayfish is what we all want, but there isn’t enough for us and fare too expensive about 650SEK/$96.00/€78.00/£62.00 per kilo and we eat of plenty of them. Unfortunate the river crayfish get the crayfish plague and dies – too often, so not allowed to be captured. We then have the “signal crayfish” that we have implanted in our lakes and rivers from USA, they are the biggest reason from why our original crayfish get the plague. The signal crayfish can have the plague, but they don’t die – so the plague is transmitted all the time.

As a child living with my grandparent – granddad and I was fishing crayfish in the little stream close to our home – with using our toes and crayfish/lobster pots. Very painful to use the toes – but efficient and with cray fish you catch them at night and you have a lamp with you so you can see where they are in the water – it was so exciting to fish with grandpa in the middle of the night.

We are not allowed to fish, sell or eat any fresh crayfish until first Wednesday in August and we can eat it for 3 months. We eat loads (tons) – so we have passed on your recipe to Turkey, USA and China, they now breeding the signal crayfish, cook them our way and send them frozen to us and only cost us 1/10 of the price, around 50.00SEK/$7.45/€6.00/£4/50. Quite good products and we eat them as I said .. in tons. 

Swedish crayfish, 4 portions
60 alive crayfish
5 litre water
150ml beer
30ml (2tbsp) caster sugar
200gr course salt
1 large bunch crown dill.

1.The fresh crayfish should be kept in cold water for a from purchase – in a container – big enough from them to move around. If not alive – DON’T USE!!!
2. Boil the water, beer, sugar, salt and a stalks of the crown dill. Boil the water for 5 minutes, remove the stalks put in half of the dill tops/crowns.
2. Add in 20 crayfish in the strong boiling water – put on the lid quickly.
3. When the water boils again, it’s time for the next 20 crayfish. Bring to boil with lid on – and the same procedure for the last 20 crayfish.
4. Set the timer for 5 minutes then it starts boiling again. When the timer rings, place in the last dill tops/crowns and cool down pot quickly and let the crayfish soak in the juice for the next day.

Do you know that seafood and alcohol is a bad combination ????? – that’s what the some experts claims – that seafood make us react badly to any alcohol and makes us sicker. A combination that can be toxic for some people. Don’t think we – Swedes – really care … not in August anyhow or Easter or Midsummer or Christmas or New Year!

“Helan Går” is on of those songs we sing for every shot of snaps we take – we have so many songs to chose from, but this is the most popular and they can’t be too long because then the snaps get warm. *smile

“I drink to make other people more interesting.”
Ernest Hemingway

Photos provided by and thanks to; borasbloggarna.se /stv.se /sverigesradio.se / topoftheworld.se / alltommat.se/vinochgastronomi.se/emmixad.blogspot.com

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