Page 50 - Book-TradiAliCulture-Belgium

The sand shrimp

The sand shrimp is a small
shrimp that we can find along the
European coasts of the Baltic Sea,
North Sea and the North Atlantic Sea,
but the ones from the north sea are
well known for its flavour.

While the translation of its French name is
« crevette grise », this animal have different names in
English: brown shrimp, common shrimp, bay shrimp
or sand shrimp. The shrimps from the city of
Oostduinkerke from the Belgian coast are famous
because they are fished according to a traditional and
ancestral method: fishing with draught horses.

A little less than a century ago, along the Belgian coast, including
Oostdunkerke, we could catch sight of shrimp fishermen on horseback in the sea.
They were equipped with a jacket and a yellow canvas trouser. As for the horse, he
was equipped with two big wicker baskets on its sides and they were pulling a large
net to retrieve shrimps.

Horse shrimp fishing has been practiced in Belgium since the 15th century. At
that time, the practice of this activity was common in Flanders because it allowed

people to have an additional income. Until the First World War, fishermen used small
horses, mules or donkeys.

After the first war, new large nets appeared: plank nets of a width from 10 to
15 meter and a length up to 30 meter. At that time, the fishermen quickly realized
that these new nets required an enormous traction force that only draught horses
could have. It was then that these fabulous horses appeared on our beaches.

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