Yabbies and Dill

Yabbies and Dill

There was an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables on display at the Central Market and Emma paused for a moment to take in the scent of freshly cut blood oranges, grapefruits, limes, and lemons. The smell of citrus was seductive and hard to resist so she picked out a handful of blood oranges for her basket. The skin was thick enough for easy peeling and the fruit felt firm in her hand. Mangoes were just in season fresh from Queensland, they spoke of a coming summer and laid perfectly cut in small cubes on the tray in front of her. The sweet, tangy, juicy fruit lingered in her mouth as she grabbed another piece from the sampling plate but there was something else that caught her attention, a scent that made her think of seafood and long sunny summer days where everything seemed bright and happy. It was sweet, slightly spicy, a scent of aniseed, caraway, and parsley, all formed in a slender green stem with split frail leaves. Subtle, yet powerful. She turned and saw the fresh bunches of dill in a bucket, and it was when she held the bunch of herbs to her nose and breathed in the aroma that her senses awoke and took her back to a place far away where she had spent most of her youth. Dill was the scent of the Scandinavian summer, fresh prawns, fish, pickled herring, and salmon. And the yabbies, of course. It was the scent of endless decadent smörgåsbords with caviar and young potatoes with melted butter, salmon pate’ and seafood aspic sometimes flavoured with a dash of brandy. Dill was the essential ingredient for a perfect Swedish dinner and had been used for hundreds of years to enhance the taste of the simplest food.

It was the three of us, Elisabeth, Carina, and me, running laughing, naked into the lake and screaming loud as the cold water hit our bodies. We stumbled over the rocky bottom and fell into the sundrenched water of this little lake that was our secret. There was nobody there except for the occasional bird that found its way down from the nearby forest. We were seventeen, school was over, and we were free. The big world out there was on our doorstep, and nothing was going to stop us. Elisabeth, who was a good swimmer, had already taken off far ahead of us. She sometimes trained at the local pool in the mornings before school, hoping to join the national athletic team, but she still had a long way to go and the curious teenage appetite for new experiences was starting to distract her. I tried to catch up with her, but the water was too cold, I felt it going through my body chilling me to the bone and taking my breath away. Carina had already turned back to the warmth and safety of the shore and was covering herself in a big yellow bath towel. It was not long before we all sat together on the hot rocks warming our bodies in the sun. The scent of coconut was in the air from the sun tan lotion and the only sound that reached us came from a soft wind blowing in the pines. We unpacked our lunch, sandwiches with hard boiled eggs and dill, cheese and radish and smoked mackerel and it was as if this day could go on forever. I wanted to bottle this day, put it in a jar with a lid placed tightly on it so that I could bring it out sometime in the far future and have it all again. Elisabeth talked about the future and how she wanted to travel, she planned to get a job, save money and travel around Europe. Carina said she just wanted to take it easy, make no plans just yet and I agreed with her up to a point, although I did have my mind set on the city and perhaps uni. We all agreed that there was no time for boyfriends, we were quite tired of the boys that appeared so childish at school and mostly seemed to live in the moment. The afternoon was approaching, and the small white fluffy clouds changed shapes as they moved out over the lake. We tried to make out what they looked like and found images of birds, faces, trains and elephants and we laughed when we imagined that we saw a couple kissing.

There was a party at the neighbours late that evening and we arrived to see the colourful lanterns hanging on the porch. It was the same every year when you were out all night celebrating the summer, the sun setting a few hours before midnight only to rise again a few hours later. My skin felt tender and sunburned, and I used Mums almond oil to soften and bring out the glow on my face and body. I wore the yellow dress and white Indian sandals. People gathered in the corner of the garden, chatting, drinking, getting ready for the celebrations, the aroma of fresh dill seemed to fill the night air, seducing us to that table of decadence where the real feast waited.

Yabbies are freshwater crayfish, caught during a certain time of the year in the local creeks. They are cooked according to Swedish tradition in a broth of salted water, beer and dill and left for 24 hours to marinate in the juices. Dill is the most important ingredient and should be picked when the plant flowers into a crown before it goes to seed. The yabbies turn bright red once they are cooked and the crown dill is placed on top of the plate for decoration. It is no secret that yabby parties are messy and noisy. Not only for the laughter and songs at the table but also for the way that yabbies are eaten, there is much slurping as the juices are sucked from their shells before they are cracked open. One might add that the noise does get louder as the evening progresses because for each cray tail you eat you should drink a shot of snaps, or at least half. Knives and forks are not needed, the fingers do all the work. Once you have turned the cray upside down and sucked out the salty, rich dill flavoured juice from the belly you break off the head and legs and proceed to break the shell in half at the tail where all the meat is. The taste is sweet and salty, rich with the flavour of dill and it does make you very thirsty. There is usually a strong Västerbotten cheese on the table to compliment the saltiness, but the flavour of the yabbies lingers long into the night.

We put on the colorful hats and tapped the glasses and made toasts as the host placed a paper with the lyrics from the ballads by the old troubadours on the table. We all joined arms and sang or rather yelled the words of Bellman and Taube into the night.

It never gets dark but as dusk descended upon us, we lit the moonfaced lanterns over the table and all the candles. There was magic in the air, and somebody suggested that we should go to the lake for a swim. The snaps had taken effect and the laughter got louder as adults and us teenagers moved along the forest paths towards the water. Carina talked about the trolls that live in the forest and how they are awake on this night laughing and playing their tricks on us. Trolls are rich, she said, filthy rich and sometimes quite naughty. Elisabeth danced on the path singing to herself and I wondered if anyone would make it down to the lake or just wonder off into the woods. It was warm and I sensed the coolness coming from the water as we got closer. My skin itched from the juices of the yabbies that had been running down my arms and I was looking forward to diving into the cool water. The mosquitos had disappeared after feasting on our blood, I knew I would suffer later. Soon the forest would be filled with blueberries and lingonberries, and our fingers and faces would be blue from the ones that never made it into the bucket. Just like when we were children.

Screams from the water made me realize this night really was going to go on forever. I undressed and turned around as I stepped into the lake to see that some of the guests were obviously going to bathe with their clothes on. Elisabeth was already swimming a long way ahead with strong movements and I gasped as I dipped under for a second or two. The water was cold.

There was a scream and we turned to see an older man that apparently had slipped on the rocks and fallen headfirst on the shore. We ran to his aid and managed somehow to carry him back to a safer spot where we tried to assess the situation. He said he was not hurt, only frightened by the fall. I could not help but laugh as I covered his naked body with my dress trying to protect his modesty. He thanked me and I recognized him as the man who live in the small cottage by the road. Him, with the big vegetable garden and the tabby cat that always sat starring at us on the porch. Someone handed me a shirt and I sat down beside him. He told me how he was the one who had fished for yabbies in the creek only a few days ago and said laughingly that without him there would not have been a yabby party this year. He grew the dill in his yard, and I knew that, because every time I walked past his garden, I could smell it in the air. Soon Elisabeth and Carina joined us, and we sat by the water for a long time talking with him about life and summers gone. I was thirsty and grateful when somebody handed us a bottle of water, the inevitable consequences of a yabbie party. The man told us he had been to Australia and what it was like there, and he said you will never be the same if you ever get “down under.” “Down under,” I thought, what a funny term which I did not understand at the time.

l did not realize then that his words would stay with me long after the summer had passed, and I made up my mind that one day I would travel to Australia. I visited him in his small cottage several times, and he told me stories of the land “down under” and showed me photos from an album. It was later in life when I thought of why I had made this journey that this whole night came back to me, and all the pieces fell into place. Perhaps that day had been locked in a jar all this time waiting to be released at the right moment.

Carina moved north to a small village in the country where she married a priest, had a family, and got divorced. She got a job as a secretary at the local school and sends me a card once a year for my birthday. Elisabeth travelled to Europe as she always wanted to and finally settled in Tuscany where she had always dreamed of going. She married an artist and became a host for a bed and breakfast. I never hear from her.

Emma bought two big bunches of dill and headed towards the fish section of the market. She looked at the freshly cooked yabbies behind the counter, caught locally in the Murray River, and asked for a kilo. It was a long time since she had eaten yabbies, but she still remembered how to cook the brine, add the dill, and let it settle overnight and perhaps it was time now for a yabby party.

She smiled to herself. “Time to open the lid on that old jar again”, she thought.