Being a student-run club for almost a century means ARK has seen its share of traditions come and go — some more interesting than others. Last weekend marked the return of an old classic, namely the (in)famous Shrimp and Crab Party.
It’s unknown exactly when this event was first held, but we do know it hasn’t been organized for a while — the last time must have been around 2013. We also know that whenever someone mentions the concept, or just seafood in general, our older members start complaining about that time the shack was unusable for several days on account of the strong smells. However, when last year’s general assembly made an attempt to strike the party from the board’s official list of responsibilities, LB0ZI and LB5LI swiftly protested and started a task-force to bring back the tradition.
The year at ARK involves a number of traditional events that its members participate in — there are of course the formal ones like the board election and the members’ assembly, but also social gatherings. These are mostly centered around the start and the end of the university semester, like the decoration of the club’s Christmas tree in December and our sodd dinner during Norway’s national holiday in May. This seafood-centered celebration used to be held in September as a way to welcome our new members to the club, which has, since its disappearance, been done by other (and less polarizing) means.
We decided not to wait until the new academic year and got started right away. Luckily, ARK has an extensive network of members working in professions all around Norway, including Lise who is employed as a crab fisher in Tromsø and offered to donate the pile of freshly cooked and frozen snow crab she received as her crew bonus. Apparently, you can just take a domestic flight with roughly fifty kilograms of crab as check-in luggage — who knew! It also turns out you can store around 25 kilos worth of crab in a normal student-dorm freezer as long as you stack it all efficiently.
When Friday finally came around, we stocked up on mayo and bread, invited all our members, and queued some bangers on the speakers before declaring the grand buffet open. For some variation, LA8ITA arrived with an excellent homemade crab salad and even more mayonnaise. Unfortunately, the final amount of mayo and bread was slightly over-dimensioned, but on account of the ever-increasing oil and corn prices, we should probably just see this as a smart investment for ARK.
After a great night with much seafood, great stories to tell and of course many weirded-out members who just dropped by to use the workshop and forgot that this event was happening, the evening came to a close when we were all out of crab around 23:00. Then we could even mop the floor before going to bed, thus avoiding any involuntary seafood-related triggers the day after — A great success!
Looks amazing, would totally join!