Fish market by the sea

Seafooding is believing

This weekend, I basically spent a whole lot of time partying and eating (lots of fun after a long week). Actually, surprise surprise, most of the time was spent EATING. Lots and lots and lots of seafood (and, inbetween seafood sessions, leftover pizza).

One of the cool things about Maputo is the fish market by the sea. There’s a whole host of (mostly old) men and women selling fresh seafood – literally handpicked from the beaches and muddied shores a few hundred metres away (during the morning, you can see tens of people roaming around the mud with buckets).

There are fish of all sorts of cool colours …..



… And did I tell you there’s LOTS of clams? Lots of different sizes – and the best part is, only 50 cents for a big cup!



Other notable mentions include Sally the Squid (here having her ink washed off) …



And Larry the lobster (here being sold by a guy walking up and down the market while the claws kept wriggling!)!



Of course, it was all a bit much for some of the shop owners – an early start selling late into the night …




The life of a prawn and what you actually do at the market

1. Browse around and find something you want to eat. Once you get there and walk around (like I did, taking photos), it’s time to actually buy something. In this case, we chose to buy some prawns after the enthusiastic sales efforts of this boy …
   
   
   
   
2. Bargain, bargain, bargain! Here, my mate Gisharmo (this Argentinan married to a Brazillian who spoke great Portuguese!) pits his against these two old ladies selling lobsters, prawns and fish. Pitfalls you must be aware of are: (i) them using dodgy scales (their first attempt at 1 kilogram was about 700 grams); (ii) them selling you old seafood mixed with new ones (this one is hard to detect); and (iii) them stuffing bits of fish/squid with ice, artificially increasing the weight!
   
   
   
   
3. Shelling. You then pay $2 a kilogram to the eating area cookery to shell it …
   
   
   
   
4. Cooking. On a burner like this one …
   
   
   
   
5. ... Before eating it! The grand finale!
   
   
   
   … Ah, it’s fantastic. And, between the ten of us, after spending $5 each, we had so much leftovers that we had to meet up the next day for a few hours to cook a risotto and pan fry the remains … oh yeah.
   
   One warning for any travelers: have a few hours to spare. Cooking the seafood took a total of two hours – we got there at 2pm, and didn’t leave until 7:30 pm!
   
   God bless
   john