Turning produce into crayfish into trouble

On Saturday, my good mate Giles dropped by with two beautiful, live crayfish (Southern rock lobster) that he caught while diving near Tinderbox. With my first opportunity in a while to trade food, I was really happy to swap a box of produce (apples, carrots, beets, plums, tomatoes and garlic). I put the crays in the fridge to go to sleep with a plan to barbecue them for dinner the following night.
The crays were split and a beautiful salad of cucumbers, tomatoes (mamma mia, stupice and sungold), red onion, parsley, olive oil and lemon juice was prepared.


Once the fire had died down to embers, I grilled the crays, shell down then meat side down after brushing the meat side liberally with a vinaigrette made from fresh tarragon, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar and Dijon mustard.


It was really delicious.

I have eaten crayfish several times before, so I didn't pay much attention to the strange tingling feeling in my lips. Soon after devouring my half a cray (plus a bit of Noah's), I felt quite uncomfortable - sore lips, throat and stomach. My stomach started to feel bloated and I felt nauseous. Nevertheless, we had our family soccer game to play and by the end of that I felt like crap. My face had swollen up and I was now developing hives all over my body and breathing was becoming difficult.


Briony gave me some antihistamine, steroids and ventolin then took me to the hospital where for the first time I walked straight in and was treated by several people at once (for those non-Aussies - we have a public health system here and this is unusual). A night in hospital and I felt much better. I was devastated to find out from the doctor that I should avoid all seafood for 4 weeks then shellfish (I forgot to check if that meant crustacea alone or molluscs as well) for a couple of years!! Hopefully, a visit to the immunology clinic might just tell me that I'm allergic to crayfish - a pity - but not prawns and crabs - a tragedy.