Ceviche

We just returned from a trip to the coast, my sweetheart and I, where we sat in the sun and watched the repetition of water on sand as if it were mantra or prayer. Some swear it is.

The Texas coast was warm; the sands, downright hot; and the seaweed in certain places, mighty powerful. The men who drove the big trucks and heavy machinery that scraped the sands clean, then piled more sand on top of the seaweed-soaked sand in what appeared to be a vain effort to ameliorate the essence of long-dead kelp were looking a little glazed. Talk about repetition, one said. They’d been moving that $#%&!@ 12 hours a day for eight weeks, and every morning they drove back onto the beaches to find it piled higher and deeper than the night before.

Whatever the cause, I didn’t envy them their particular mantra, but I found that if I walked southwest along the shoreline, the seaweed was less plentiful, perhaps having been more recently cleaned. When I bent down and scrutinized the clumps of fresh kelp at my feet, I saw sworls of green and gold leaves tangled among tiny amber pearls, caught in the foam of sand and receding tide. If I looked closely enough, I found sea creatures—tiny crabs, clinging to their traveling raft, orange scallop shells and small gray barnacled turrets.

A father and young son ran by, chasing the wet sand after a wave, looking for the bubbling holes left by the creatures they called ghost shrimp. Finding a hole, the father plunged a plastic tube into the sand and siphoned out a small gray shrimp, which the child scooped into a watery pail. They made good bait, he explained. Were they going fishing, I asked. He looked at his small, sunburned son squatting in the sand and laughed. Noooo, he said. They weren’t going fishing. They were just having a good time on the beach.

I watched older boys in their bright Hawaiian suits and their cool sunglasses wrangle in a foot-long baby hammerhead shark. They laughed when I asked if there were many of those out there in the warm gulf waters so close to the beach. What do you think, they said.

I ventured out anyway, braved the crabs and the sharks and the seaweed to roll in on a few gentle waves before giving in to the sun and sprawling flat on the sand to watch that hypnotic prayer repeat itself into my consciousness.

On the way home, we stopped at a crabhouse just this side of the ferry and brought home 19 furious blue crabs. We ate them the next night, drenched in crab juice and butter, prolonging the taste of the sea.

I love the ocean, the sea, the gulf, the bays. I love the salty smell of summer, the worn driftwood, broken sand dollars, the chocolate-brown sea beans that ride the waves from Africa. And I love the taste of seafood.

I can remember sitting on the hood of our car above a foggy California beach somewhere north of Santa Cruz with my father, watching the Pacific approach and retreat, peeling cold shrimp and sucking the sweet meat from Dungeness crabs, chasing the whole affair with fresh, raw green peas from a roadside stand, cold white wine, sour dough bread and sand.

I can remember diving off the shores of Ambergris Cay with Luz, a fishing guide who, when the fish were not accommodating, encouraged us all to tumble over the side of his small boat to hunt conch in the long, wet lawns that lie beneath the blue green of the Caribbean. We tugged the large pink snails from the sea grass and stuffed them, slow motion, into Luz’s trailing net bag. Back on board the boat, Luz extracted the meat from the shells, minced it, poured fresh lime juice, chopped cilantro and serranos from his garden across the top, then tossed the whole pink and green mess in a plastic bowl with his dark, worn hands. The lime, he said, would cook it. Five minutes later we were eating it, crunchy, briny and sour with the clean lines of cilantro and brain-clearing effects of the chiles. Cooked? Who knows? I didn’t care. I love sushi.

And I love ceviche. With apologies to purists, I’d like to offer a summer version to suit those of us located hours from the coast, but burdened with a predilection for shellfish. Purists will tell you that ceviche should contain raw fish. They might tell you that anything remotely cooked before it goes into the limejuice is cheating. They might tell you this is not ceviche. Then, again, they might not. Call it what you want, but try it. It’s wonderful summer fare.

(1)

1 pound small to medium shrimp (51-60/lb), peeled

1 pound sea scallops

½ pound lump crabmeat

1 Tablespoon minced or pressed garlic

½ finely diced red onion

1-2 minced jalapenos or serranos

1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice, plus freshly grated zest of one lime

½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/3 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

Salt

2 avocadoes, diced

1 bunch cilantro chopped

1 red bell pepper, diced

2 mangoes, diced

(2)

Repeat first 12 ingredients from recipe 1, omitting orange juice

2-3 ripe homegrown tomatoes, diced

1 cup drained and rinsed chopped green olives with pimientos

Boil water in saucepan, then add peeled shrimp and boil for 30-45 seconds or until just barely beginning to turn opaque. Drain and rinse under cold water to prevent further cooking. Boil more water, remove from heat and plunge scallops into hot water until they begin to turn opaque (maybe 30 seconds). Drain immediately and rinse under cold water. Cut scallops into quarters or thirds—depending on size.

Combine shrimp, scallops and crabmeat in bowl and very gently toss with fruit juices and a sprinkling of salt. The amounts on the juices is approximate (as are all these ingredients) and can vary according to your taste. If you like it sweeter, add more orange juice. Remember that, in recipe 1, the mangoes will also add sweetness and that, in recipe 2, olives will add saltiness. Flavors can always be adjusted at the end. Put entire mixture into a Ziploc bag and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.

Remove from the refrigerator, pour into a bowl and add remaining ingredients. Stir gently. Let sit 30 minutes to combine flavors, the serve with tortilla chips.

Enjoy!