Cooking up Jaiva

This happened a while ago now but I figure better late than never since it was a cool experience. My friend Thony´s brother Marco bought a bunch of freshwater crabs, known here as jaiva, and brought them over to my house to cook up. First we had to find a big caldero (cooking pot) to put them in. Then the crabs had to be cleaned. After that, firewood had to be chopped and the fire started in a traditional outdoor three stone fogon. The little neighbors boys and one neighbor girl came over to watch and enjoy. We cooked them in the caldero for quite a long time with a bunch of sopitas (bouillon cubes) and yucca, and corn and various other veggies and spices. Then we hauled them out one by one and dug in. There´s no crab cruncher things here so it was mainly done by hand. It was delicious although I couldn´t quite bring myself to suck out the innards like the Dominicans did. Supposedly delicious but I was reluctant to believe that. Here´s a few pictures!


Thony chopping firewood for the meal.


Here´s the crab getting cooked up in the pot.


Here´s the neighbor boys Pedro, Carlo, and Niño is the little one.