Island Two

Instead of heading to the beach on Easter Sunday like most Guadeloupeans, M. and I went to Morne-à-l'Eau for la Fête du Crabe. Every Easter Sunday for the past 17 years, les Mornaliens have celebrated the mangrove crab with an all day festival with live music, boat rides in the mangrove, ox rides, and of course, lots of crabs.

Above, left to right, a demonstration of quadrille on stage and the various stands participating in the festival.

This is the kind of event that people who grew up in small towns disparage. I revel in this folksy kind of stuff, and made M. bring me. There were some big-name sponsors, including the Bologne distillery and Capès mineral water, and had the support of various regional and local agencies. The entire festival is organized by the clunkily-named Association for the Protection and Development of the Crab and Other Resources of the Mangrove (l'Association pour la Protection et le développement du crabe et des autres ressources de la mangrove, APRODECARM).

Above, the sleek in-color program that was entirely ignored. Click on the image to read.

Manjé krab. Bwé Capes.

Ostensibly, the raison-d'etre of the festival is to to increase awareness regarding the ecological, economic and cultural importance the mangrove. This is perhaps necessary since the largest light industrial and commercial zone in all of France is located in Guadeloupe on razed and drained mangrove. But, everybody knows that the whole point of the festival is to eat some crab.

Smaller fare included crabe farci (stuffed crab), crab puff pastry. Main courses were spooned out from large vats, including Matété, Kalalou, Dombré, and Colombo. According to this recipe, the distinctive flavor of Matété comes principally from West Indian Bay seeds and leaves. For the kanalou, crabs sat in a swampy green sauce made with taro leaves. The dombré was the only dish not to be served with rice. In its place, little balls of flour – perhaps like gnocchi – which are boiled separately, then cooked with the crab stew. This recipe describes the sauce for dombré as tomato-based.

It would have been nice if a tasting plate was offered. Since that was not available, we had to make a choice. M. chose the Matété and I got myself a stuffed crab.


Above, left to right, Matété and stuffed crab.

Both had deep woodsy flavors, and that characteristic smokiness of Caribbean cooking.

I am not a huge fan of seafood, having only begun eating fish in the last few years. I made an exception today because it would be idiotic to attend a crab festival and not eat the crab. I was also encouraged by the fact that I had a very tasty king crab once. Though I do admit I was a bit put off by the little hairs (?) on the crab legs, and the beard. I got a little squeamish when M. purposely toyed with the eyes of my stuffed crab.

The festival spilled out beyond the square and past the police barricades blocking traffic on the street circling the square. On one of the side streets, somebody had decided to make a bit of a political statement:

Left, to catch a political crab...

In a patch of unused dirt, a collection of wooden crab traps, each with the names of political figures. Willy Angèle, the spokesperson for Medef; Nicolas Desforges, Préfet and Yves Jégo, Secretary of State for the Overseas Territories; Jacques Gillot, President of the General Council and Victorin Lurel, President of the Regional Council; Elie Domota, leader of LKP; and Colette Koury, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Above the crab traps, a play on the abbreviation of Lyannaj kont le profitayson (LKP), Lyannaj Krab Pak.

Besides the crabs, there were a number of stands occupied by artisans, most selling jewelry made from seeds and coconut shells. In the past, I associated this kind of stuff with the 'beach' look of Midwestern teens who live hundreds of miles from the ocean. Or, rasta-hip trendy types. But I've noticed a lot of the Antillais wear this kind of jewelry, to great effect.


Catch the Crab Fever

It was a bit like a New York street fair, except without the funnel cakes and $10 massages. I think that had the festival taken place in the US, there would have been crab balloons, a man in a crab suit, crab magnets, crab ashtrays and more, so much more. Some people might balk at such commercialism, and I would never buy any of that stuff myself, but I believe in going all out. People should really leave with crab-themed household items that clash horribly with everything they own, completely crabbed-out by the end. There is no sense of crab fanaticism, and there is certainly no passion. The feeling instead was more akin to affection, the same kind one might feel towards chicken breast. Maybe that is why one vendor, set up on the fringe of the festival to sell sorbet coco and pineapple cake, said that every year there are fewer and fewer vendors.

Let's hope people catch some crab fever next year.