Secrets of My Nomadic Heart

In Quebec, people love to eat. With amazing fresh seafood, and lobsters in season - why not?! I had my fair share of a 2 kg lobster all to myself. Steamed and boiled, so one can taste the natural sweetness of the white juicy flesh. I was also introduced to dip my chunky lobster meat in melted butter with crushed garlic. Such sinful heaven.

My favourite gastronomic discovery is Matane's shrimps, called 'crevettes de Matane' in French. Matane is a little town further up north of Rimouski, along the St Laurence river - an hour drive from our place. The shrimps look like any normal shrimps in the world, and not the largest. But when they are in season, every shrimp comes pregnant, with their tiny legs hugging huge lumps of eggs beneath their tummy. I had to ask - are they all female? Or are the male shrimps helping to hold the eggs too? Later, I found out the all shrimps are unisex/bisexual/asexual.



They come boiled and chilled. I would always start with licking the eggs out first. The funny thing is that the Quebecoises would bypass the eggs and attack the meat. I am the odd stranger who would eat the eggs, that seem too strong for the locals. Here's an underground video of my shrimp attack, and some evidence that I did stuff myself with a huge lobster!








A Quebecoise friend said ' to know how to eat, is to know how to live'. How true. =)

To add to this statement, to my wonderful amazement, I found every sauce I need to tailor to my Asian cravings - curry sauce, fish sauce, chilli sauce, black bean sauce, shrimp paste, satay sauce, indian curry sauce, all kinds of spices from every known continent. It only goes to show how open they are to experimenting food from all corners of the world.