Mock Crab

Hello, retro food lovers and…war buffs? Today I am sharing a recipe for Mock Crab which was inspired by my reading of N or M by Agatha Christie. The real Dining with the Dame post will come next week but during my reading of this book, I became mildly obsessed with the food of wartime Britain.  I found a fabulous blog called The 1940’s Experiment and decided to give one of the wartime recipes a whirl!  I am also mildly obsessed with “mock” foods so I chose mock crab. 

Umm…what?  I hear you say.  Mock crab looks like this!  However, it looks to all the world that you have posted a photo of some scrambled eggs on toast. Did you mix your photos up?  Might we finally be getting a post on the bacon and eggs that is mentioned in EVERY Agatha Christie novel but has yet to make an appearance in Dining with the Dame?

Well…no and no.  This my friends is mock crab.

But also yes.  Because this is scrambled eggs on toast.  Albeit some mildly vinegary scrambled eggs on toast.  This recipe perplexed me and I’ll tell you why as soon as I share the link.  Here it is:  Wartime Mock Crab.

Mock Me Not

So here is what I don’t understand about the mock crab.  Cheesy scrambled eggs are delicious.  And not just for breakfast.  I would eat them at any time of day!  Cheesy scrambled eggs with salad dressing and additional vinegar?  Not so much.  This, for me, was, unfortunately, something that was less than the sum of its parts. I’m also not quite sure why, particularly when you are on rations, you would add anything to cheesy scrambled eggs.  My preference would have been to save the dressing and vinegar for something else (maybe a salad?) and to eat the eggs as scrambled eggs.  

I can only surmise that the addition of the salad dressing and vinegar was to make it taste more crabby.  If so, it didn’t work.   No one in their right mind would mistake the taste of this for crab.  And yet….there was something.  Maybe the texture?  Or possibly the power of suggestion…that made this somewhat reminiscent of crab.  

Whilst I didn’t love the mock crab, it was nice to take a peek into war time cooking and imagine the gang at the Sans Souci (from N and M) tucking into a plate of of it for lunch.  

Next weeks post will be on N or M, an Agatha Christie wartime thriller featuring Tommy and Tuppence.  At least I hope it will be.  I will be on holiday, soaking up some sun in the north of Australia so I will  schedule it to run on Sunday.  Fingers crossed it works!

Have a great week!