Earlier this week we headed to Venus Bay near Melbourne to pick pipis, which are basically the local shellfish found in the sand at the intertidal area. There's been a lot of online controversy over whether this area has been over-dug, with the locals claiming that Asians have come to rape the beach and that the fishing inspectors aren't doing anything about it. That morning we went, we saw lots of people of different races digging for pipis so it could be that the Asians had come and gone, or the locals were unfortunately colour blind, ie. everyone looked Asian to them, or perhaps they could be having other vision issues.
But the locals are right about one point, which is the complete absence of fishing inspectors which I would have expected over the busy summer period. The obedient Singaporeans had their fishing licenses all ready for inspection, as well as a 2 litre bottle to determine our catch limit. It was a beautiful, gorgeous, lovely summer day of around 22 deg C.
We arrived just around low tide, and there were already people digging away on the beach. Just for the record, the majority of diggers (or rapists) appeared to be either Anglo, Italian or Greek. Let the Asian here tell you definitively that although all Anglos look the same to us, just as all Asians look the same to a white person, it is extremely difficult to mistake a white person for an asian and vice versa.
We started digging just near the edge of the water, and very soon, found a few clusters of shells just a few centimetres below the surface of the sand. We left the smaller pipis for someone to pick another day, and focused on the bigger guys.
Like this chappy here. It was a bit of a treasure hunt in the dark, using our hands and feeling for shells below the sand. Fishing regulations state that you can't use a spade or anything else, only feet and hands, so we groped around slowly. And our patience paid off - we picked up enough for dinner.
This chap was doing surf fishing, but didn't catch anything while we were there.
All in, we had about a litre of pipis which was enough for us, and headed off with some sea water in the bucket to keep the pipis alive. We picked up a few empty shells along the way thanks to a blond curly-haired kid who couldn't have been more than 2 and a half years old, who got very excited and insisted on "helping". In the end we had to try to sieve out the little pipis so that we didn't end up bringing them home. And as we went off, the other groups that arrived before us were still digging away, so perhaps yes maybe an optometrist would do pretty well in the area.
After we got home I transferred the pipis to another container to try to get the sand out, and soaked them in tap water plus salt.
The little blond kid's dad asked me how I was going to cook the pipis. "On the barbie, with some lemon?" I was vaguely horrified. Hell, no. With garlic, sambal belachan and Chinese rice wine, in a frying pan! (I'd have said a wok if only I had one).
Absolutely beautiful, fresh, succulent and delicious.
