Ban Phe is also a major squid fishery. For miles up and down the coast gutted squid are laid out on bamboo racks to dry in the sun. They are occasionally sprinkled with sugar and crushed chili peppers during this process, and, since they are not screened off from insects, thousands of flies also land on 'em to add their own inimitable tang. The end result is a savory squid leather that is either run through a mangle to allow for easy mastication, or cut into small pieces and fried in palm oil until it plumps up into an exquisite appetizer, or even a main dish when served with sticky rice and a bowl of fish sauce mixed with lime juice and sliced mouse shit peppers (the literal translation of their name 'prik khii neuw.')
An English teaching job brought me to Ban Phe back in 2007. I had a room at the school, which was literally half a block from the beach, so I could spend the early morning hours luxuriating in the milk warm water as the tropical sun exploded over the misty blue waves. Then I walked up from the beach to a thatched hut that served freshly caught shrimp and crab sauteed with mung bean noodles and a fried duck egg on top. For just seventy-five cents. That was my breakfast. My life there was, in fine, an equatorial idyll.
One fine day my Thai girlfriend Joom suggested we go in with several other couples to hire a fishing boat for a night of squid dipping. It not only would be romantic, she purred with an arch look, but we could buy a portion of the catch for a few satangs and dry them ourselves. (There are 100 satangs in a Thai baht.)
No sooner said than done. Joom was a very sociable creature and she rounded up five other couples for a night out on the Gulf of Thailand. The boat we hired was called 'Water Sprite' and looked about as sea worthy as the 'Minnow' from Gilligan's Island. The captain had a villainous scar across his cheek -- no doubt from a buccaneer's cutlass slash -- and his crew were a sullen lot who grumbled in a continuous monotone until several cases of Chang Beer arrived to be put on ice. Then they brightened up considerably. Since most of the men passengers on board that night were British expats they used most of the beer (that part which the crew failed to extract first) to make shandy -- a popular English tipple that consists (in Thailand, at least) of half Fanta Orange and half beer. I wouldn't touch the stuff with a barge pole -- but Joom enthusiastically lapped it up with the rest of the passengers until they were all as jolly and sloppy as frat boys at a hazing.
We unmoored just before midnight and chugged out into the inky black for several miles, then dropped anchor and prepared the spotlights. You don't use a hook or a large net for squid. You just shine a bright light down into the water and they rise up by the thousands, thinking it's the moon and so time for some frenzied mating. Then you just dip your net down into the spawning slimy hugger mugger and bring up a few dozen at a time. We were hauling them in like gangbusters at first -- until several sharks showed up. Then the squid, which up until then had been content to thrash demurely around in the water, decided that our boat offered a better chance of survival; they flung themselves out of the water by the hundreds and lay flopping and expiring around us like a translucent and funky carpet. Ironically, I was the only one who couldn't keep on my feet -- all the shandy swilling Brits kept their heads and navigated the deck with cool competency, while I did circus pratfalls by the dozen. By the time we got back to Ban Phe the sun was just breaking through the early morning mist, and I had to be helped off the 'Water Sprite' by a giggling Joom, who gave several hearty nautical belches in response to our fellow passenger's farewells. When we got back to my bungalow I greased up with a camphorated Tiger Balm that had my black and blue skin tingling agreeably, and then went to bed.
Joom offered to stay and cook me some fresh squid with kaffir lime and coconut milk. I didn't like the tone of sly pity for my landlubberly behavior that I detected in her voice, so brusquely told her to just take the doggone squid to her brother's farm house and set 'em all out to dry.
Glowing with anger (and several large contusions) I was not about to be cajoled by her coy looks and insistence that some fresh squid soup would help me feel better. But at last, just to get her out of my thinning hair, I acquiesced. As she began puttering around the kitchen I shouted at her from under my silk coverlet --
"And don't put any mouse shit peppers in it, either!"
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