When I was on holiday on the Ile d’Oleron they sold dressed crabs, but not as we know them.
They also sold boiled crabs cut in two.
We can get Fleetwood cranbs from Grand Frais.
You tube will show you how to dress them and how to distinguish between a hen and a cock.
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You simly can’t beat a Cromer crab.
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Or Cromer girls Peter ! 
Took me while to understand what on earth she was talking about but hey - every cloud etc…
Thass roite ole boye, Croamer morthers talk all funnee, carnt mek owt wot thaireonaboute.
They are even more difficult to understand in Yarmouth !
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Even Chatka brand is not the same! Like the difference between tins of tuna and the fresh thing…
On a side note… we had a hot and tasty soup today…
La Sablaise (Soupe Poissons de roche & de fond). To which I added ready-cooked moules and prawns (no shells), which I found hidden in the freezer… cor that hit the spot, with fresh crusty bread. 
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No obviously it isn’t the same, but if you are using it IN something it is not bad and less fiddly. It is what my great-grandmother’s nem makers used in the crab nems they made when they came round and took over the kitchen.
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Thank you for a very complete answer, Véronique. I learned to ‘draw’ gambas crues by watching a YouTube demo, and rather twigged that’s what the process of castrating the écrevisse was about. I’m not too keen on prawns of any kind, but my wife loves them but not the cooked ones.
I can’t say I feel strongly about arthropods, but I wouldn’t care to inflict unnecessary suffering on any living thing. Since moving to rural France I have a heightened sensibility to such things, I think it’s come about by keeping chickens. There was a spider living behind a stone sink in our buanderie. I brushed away its web while tidying up. A few days later it made an almost identical web and sat in the middle as if defending it, so I let it be. Over the next two years we ‘developed a relationship’ and I named her Mavis. She has not appeared now for about three weeks, although her appearances were always irregular, so I think she may have relocated or deceased.
In the early stages of our acquaintance I used to speak to her in a silly voice, but later we communicated by a kind of telepathy. She didn’t communicate her intention to disappear, so she may return. I miss her a bit. She was quite big and brown with clearly discernible knees and ankles. I Googled her anatomy and life expectancy etc, that’s how much she interested me.
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I LOVE that story Peter…! When I was painting my kitchen I came across a Spider such as you describe behind my kitchen door…I hadn’t the heart to disturb her so just painted round her and her web…Grandmother Spider…weaver of the universe and spirit guide in many shamanistic traditions…I have never eaten crayfish…x 
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My #2 daughter encourages spiders in her bedroom as an anti fly and mozzy measure, she ‘installs’ them in each corner up by the ceiling and lets them get on with their life, we get running reports of the day’s catch… if she thinks they aren’t getting enough food she catches something we don’t like and puts it in the web.
There are limits though, we had Aragog living in the St John’s wort and no way was he /she coming inside.
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Thanks for that helpful explanation, Glenn. Following a YouTube demonstration of preparing gambas, I did as you taught, and it was much easier than I imagined. Mind you, the gambas were huge and we had already cooked them, so pulling off the heads and removing the shells was easy. I’d eaten them with their innards intact previously, and I don’t know that they tasted any better without their guts than with them.
What’s in their guts is presumably well-digested anyway, I’ve swallowed a peck of muck in my lifetime, and tend to think it has contributed to my immunological resilience. I grew up in an age when baths were taken once a week, and we used the same water; even that was regarded as a new-fangled fad.
My granny Minnie used her new bath (in a new post-war council house) to store her coal. I think this was very common practice in the ‘30s and ‘40s, when domestic ovens and ‘stoves’ were coal-fired and situated in the living room; the scullery only contained a cold-water sink.
It’s nice to reminisce!
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Our daughters seem to have similar dispositions when it comes to animal welfare. By coincidence, ours sent us this heart-stirring news about a cow that made a freedom dash on its way to the abattoir. Respect for animal sentience seems to be very strong in young(er) people, our middle-aged son regularly takes injured ‘wild’ birds to a local sanctuary for treatment and care.
I had to look up Aragog. You are a great source of esoteric knowledge, vero!
I look forward to your report of a successful shopping expedition.
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Nems! Now that’s an idea. I haven’t made any in ages, so a good thought thanks.
Did you find any Crab Mandy ? … i suppose with the size of France it can be quite difficult.
As kids we used to scrabble about the rock shores, pools etc. Learning why little crustaceans were called limpets. The sea anemone’s that withdrew their tentacles when menacing kids sploshed nearby.
yes to reminisce… jogs the memory.
My father taught me how to catch prawns…when the sun was very low and setting, and the tide was flooding. As you stood in rock gullies, with the water rising the prawns would swim in with the water. They glow in the dark, and made it easier to catch them in your net 
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I found cooked whole crab in Leclerc but that requires too much fiddly work for me. No crab of any kind in Auchan. I’m going to Grand Frais next week to look there and if I have no joy then I will venture to the Poissonnerie. We are a fair distance from the coast so that may be why it’s a bit difficult to find. I will keep searching. In the meantime I have bought some Rillette de Crabe on special offer from Lidl this week in an attempt to satisfy hubby’s craving for crab.
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Well beware with the rillette de anything fishy, I have always found them disgusting, cat food smelt better.
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Haha!!! Haven’t opened it yet but maybe the cats will be getting a treat then!!
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I’ve always found the Lidl crab in plastic pots fine.
Are they rillettes de crabe though? I got an assortment of that sort of thing a while ago, but in Inter, thinking I’d save a bit of time and effort in the kitchen but oh no, too nasty for words, so what a disappointment. But maybe I was just an idiot and chose the wrong thing, I haven’t tested again.