A day in oostende: interview with Dini!
Should you be able to choose, which superpower would you choose and why?
A superpower in these times is not difficult to choose: I would love to be able to heal everything and everyone. Then the corona creature would hopefully be gone quickly so we can go back to our normal lifes!
How did you get to shrimp fishing?
I am not the fisherman, I am the fisherman's daughter. It actually passes from father to son. For example, I am generation 6 who is on the fish ladder, because a girl who becomes a fisherman is rather strange. So you're kind of born into it, it's in your blood.
What is your favorite shrimp dish? Recipe?
My favorite dish with shrimps is: Tomates Anciennes cut in carpaccio / Burrata mozzarella / fresh shrimps from O.62 and a little bit of olive oil / pepper / fleur de sel ... With a good glass of bubbles!
I am generation 6 who is on the fish ladder, because a girl who becomes a fisherman is rather strange
What is the largest shrimp you have ever caught?
The largest shrimp is difficult, shrimp are rather small animals, but the largest is 5cm, I think. But this is extremely rare. There are about 600 pieces in 1 kg of shrimp.
Did you want to become a shrimp fisherman as a little girl?
This was certainly not my dream job. But blood creeps where it cannot go and in the end, it has been proven, I am in my place at the Vistrap in Ostend. It has always been my 2nd home. I even ran my own clothing store in Ostend, Replay / Diesel / MissSixty / Fornarina for 3 years. But not my cup of tea at all, although I thought it was very nice that I could go to work clean and return home, that is not the case now, I also thought choosing the collections was great, everything in the background.
What is the craziest story you have already experienced as a shrimp fisherman?
I am not really a shrimp fisherman, I am the daughter of, but my dad used t have a dream and there was the Dream Factory with Bart Peeters. My daddy dreamed of a ship full of fish, I sent his dream to Dream Factory but never got an answer. About 2-3 weeks later my dad had a ship full of fish out of nowhere: Herring!
Do you sometimes also catch other things such as shrimp?
We also always have bycatch, ranging from dab to sole, cod, turbot, brill, sprat, skate, sand shark, flounder, whiting, plaice ...
As a tourist, what is the easiest way to catch shrimp yourself?
As a tourist you can try to catch shrimp along the waterline with a scoop net, but you will have to exercise a lot of patience for that. The simplest is: they come to buy from us at the fish ladder (directly from the fisherman), sit on a terrace with a good glass and enjoy the peeling. (If it doesn't work with 1 glass, feel free to drink 2).
Are you only going to fish by boat or also by horse?
We only fish with our ship, every evening at 5 pm we sail out, at 7 am the next morning we sail back in. There are no horse fishermen in Ostend, they are in Oostduinkerke. Oostduinkerke does not have any ships, but they are moored in Ostend.
Do you want to meet Dini ?
Vistrap
Visserkaai 35
8400 Oostende
