I didn't know squat

One of the adventures available to the self-catering traveler is to buy seafood right from the fisherman. We were in Jura, and happened upon a fishing boat as he was unloading his catch. I'd thought that he'd caught langoustines, but he told me that they were actually a crustacean called squat lobsters.

The fisherman was yanking them in half, tossing the recognizable head and claws back into the sea, and keeping the rolled-up tails in a large bucket. Like all things British (think "tatties and neeps"), they're often called squatties by the locals, although I generally don't like to get too friendly with my food.

We tossed the tails in a pot of boiling water (much more fun than listening to live lobsters click and scream), and waited for the water to boil again. Peeling and deveining them was an easy operation, because you can tug on the tail gently and the vein comes out as well.

Squat lobsters are often passed off as langoustines, but they're actually more closely related to hermit crabs.