Saturday market day and today was a time for discovery. With my trusty cook we went to Farmer’s Market in Cubao and bought many new things for me to taste. This time I had clams in mind… the halaan variety. Then we chanced upon ocean caught shrimps.
The nice lady vendor said that her clams were already dipped in salty water so they are now clean. They have expunged their sand. They are ready to eat. I asked where they came from, she said this batch came from the ocean waters at Bataan province. The other kind of clams came from ocean waters of Bicol. That’s comforting to hear because I don’t trust Cavite waters.
I asked for a taste of the clams. I thought she was going to get a knife to open one up. Instead she just took one clam and smashed its shell in a corner of her stall. I was surprised it was that easy. And she gave me the smashed shell to eat. It was pretty obvious that my cook and this lady vendor are used to eating raw clams. And to my surprise these clams were tasty and slightly sweet. For those who still cook, there is absolutely no need to cook these babies. Now I realize those theories about humans may have evolved and thrived near the sea. With abundant small fish and shellfish, you have an easy and delicious life. Picking up a clam and smashing it on a stone is so easy a 4 year old child can do it.
Among the many other things we bought I chanced upon ocean caught shrimps. Maybe 6 inches long curved. If you remove the head it is just 4 inches long. At home I first had a bowl with some natural coconut vinegar to dip the shrimps in. I tasted the shrimps first and it tasted heavenly plain. I returned the vinegar to its bottle. I greedily ate all the shrimps without dipping them in vinegar.
After the shrimps I ate my freshly killed organic yellow never frozen raw bone marrow and raw sirloin. Then I had dipped in vinegar some tiny ocean shrimp called alamang. And to cap off lunch I chomped on some sea weed, lato variety, some small and some bigger bubbles.
We put the clams in water. They are still alive. Waiting to be eaten at dinner time.