this poor guy got sold among a handful of sea snails by the local shellfish merchant. but he was not, in fact, an “escargot de mer.” he was a hermit crab squatter who had broken into someone else’s house and was living there in flagrant disregard. in theory, from a purely legal perspective, he had it coming. but i wish we’d found him earlier, before he’d been cooked in saltwater and a teaspoon of pastis, and could have set him free to continue  breaking the law in his stolen house.

hermit crab

mediterranean, france