The Sensualness of the Maputo Fish Market

One of the two entrances...

What a sensual experience the Maputo fish market is...

Here's the way that lunch there works: first, you wander around and take everything in, then you buy the fish, shrimp, clams, lobsters or crabs that you want. Rather than taking them home, though, what you do next is absolutely brilliant: you walk a few metres over to one of the many little restaurants that line the market's outer edge, pick one and then they cook them up for you! Now if that isn't a bloody great idea, I don't know what is... No thermobags or shlepping ice around in the sun, no sir, from the stall to the grill. Y ya.




To see what colour they turn after steaming, see below...

So there you are, surrounded by touts, all of whom are trying to entice you to go to their particular restaurant (and trying to "help" you choose your meal... and you're like, dude, it's fresh seafood, it's not that hard...) and at the same time, the fishmongers are calling out and catching your eye, holding up their products, showing them kick and flip... and the colours on the lobsters and fish are amazing... everything is beautiful--even the big crabs covered in mud--and the crustaceans are still crawling and get this, the clams are actually spitting water! yes! there they are, chilling--literally--in a big bowl and every once in a while a wee spurt comes out... "hello! pick me!" they seem to say...


She was proud of her prawns...

So you're in total sensory-overload mode and you're having fun and trying not to lose your money, either, because you never know when a pickpocket is lurking about... you're hyper aware... and you haven't even eaten yet! Then, when you're sitting there waiting for your food and sipping some cheap, house white, these really nice girls come by and offer to sell you fresh peanuts and cashews. At first you say no but then they smile and ask sweetly and how can you resist? And besides, how often to you have big cashews delivered right to where you're sitting? So now you have salt on your fingers and tongue and it mixes with the crispness of the wine and you're happy...



Ah! And there's your food! The prawns arrive first; the meat is perfectly cooked and because they took the time to get some really good coals going, it's nicely offset by that wonderful and honest char-broiled taste. You're among the first to eat this afternoon but now the tables are filling up and people are looking at your feast enviously...



...and here's the plate of softshell crab... rosy-hued and eggshell thin, utterly succulent as you bite and suck... and at one point you go into your own little world as you savour the sweetness of the meat and taste the sea in your mouth...



Now you're done and doing a final walk-about the market. The touts are gone; you've already eaten. You admire the lobsters once more and promise to come back another day... then cross the aisle to thank the crab seller who is rightly delighted that you loved them and he shakes your hand the African way... like three times in a row... And now, just before you ring your cab to take you home, you slip the prawn lady the two bottles of Coke that she had not-so-subtly asked for earlier...

She looks at you, smiles and says "anytime..."


The nut-seller girls taking a break...