Trempage!

Today, I went to a trempage.

The word in French literally means "soak." Basically, it's an all-you-can-eat shellfish smorgasbord that you eat with your hands. The tradition apparently originated in Tartane, one of the neighborhoods of Trinité.

The trempage was held at the home of a friend of one of the assistants. Here's how it happens.

First, you wrap the entire table in plastic wrap.



Then, you put banana leaves on the table and cut off the stems.



Then, you dump breadcrumbs on the banana leaves.



Then, you spread the breadcrumbs over the banana leaves with your hands. There's actually an art to this. They can't be too thick or too thin or too rough or too smooth -- otherwise, the sauce won't penetrate.



You garnish the leaves with piment fort -- ridiculously strong peppers.



And then, finally, you pour the shellfish stew over everything.



After that, everyone gathers around the table. You eat standing up, and technically, you're only supposed to use one hand (the other goes behind your back). I cheated a little, though, and so did most other people.



You form little balls with the breadcrumbs and use them to soak up the sauce. The shellfish (shrimp, crab, and octopus) you have to crack by hand and suck the meat out.



It was thick and rich and pretty spicy. We all stood around stuffing our faces for about fifteen minutes without stopping. You couldn't even really talk to anyone else -- the task at hand required one hundred percent focus.

Here's the damage we did.



It was absolutely delicious. I've never experienced anything quite like that before. The closest I've come was Ethiopian food in Berkeley, but that was just a restaurant.

In other news, Nicolas Sarkozy is here in Martinique. I'm not sure if he's just scoping things out, or campaigning, or simply taking a holiday, but he and Carla apparently arrived on Friday and are staying in François, where all the béké (basically rich white Martiniquais) live. Go figure.