The Finnish crayfish season begins July 21 and runs through the end of August. This period is open season for crayfish parties, and my Finnish family had ours this past week. In addition to large communal platters of red-orange crayfish topped with crown dill, there are several stock elements: buttered toast, silly bibs, the practice of sucking loudly on the body of the crayfish, schnapps or vodka, and—most importantly in my book—drinking songs. The idea is that you work away at a crayfish for a while, extract the meat, pile it onto a toast, then take a shot (of Koskenkorva vodka if you know what you're doing) and sing a song with every tail you put away. It only takes a passing glance at the near future, in which you will be eating between 12 and 30 crayfish tails, to realize that this is a terrible idea, probably invented by some derelict turn-of-the-century baron with a lot of debt and a thirsty streak. The practice is ill-suited for extended non-pirate families on summer vacation.
But it turns out singing can be done schnappsless. Whenever a song sprung up, everyone at the banquet table, a group ranging in age from one to 88, hooted along, even my brother and sister and I, who are half American and don't speak fluent Finnish or Swedish. "What are we singing about?" I asked my cousin. "A pirate. He gets hanged." She went back to hollering. During another song a few minutes later, I heard my sister ask my mom the same question. "Oh, this is a true story," my Mom answered. "It tells you how to kill a man with steel in the back." I looked at the one year old across from me at the table. She had given up on crayfish and was sucking on a piece of toast. Later, I asked my mom to translate some of the songs we'd sung. She ran her finger over the handout of song lyrics my cousin had made. "'Grandpa Has His Own Bar,' 'When I Die (You Can Have my Schnapps Glass),' 'The Throat Lubricating Song,' 'Jänis Istui Mmaassa,'—oh that's a children's song but they changed the lyrics so instead of the rabbit jumping, he's drinking heavily." "This is what we were singing together at the table?" I flashed back to the wholesome faces of my relatives. "Noooo, of course not. We didn't get to all of these. We didn't do this one: 'If your wife tells you not to drink, then drink and drink. If your wife tells you not to bring liquor in, then bring and bring, but don't you ever stop drinking, only switch for yourself a better wife. And drink and sing and drink and sing and drink and sing.'" Or rather, drink moderately and keep an eye on babies and make toast and reminisce and eat and sing lewd songs.
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