The Prawn Problem
What is it with shrimp these days? I remember the days of my childhood up all night in the bow of dad's boat sorting shrimp. Well, more like sleeping among the life preservers, I was really little at the time. At any rate, I grew up eating shrimp in two fashions, first lightly floured, and even more lightly fried. Second, head off, shell on, boiled up with a generous dose of Old Bay. In both cases shrimp were a finger food, one just required more work than the other to eat.
These days I am a little too employed, a little too inland and a little too smart to go catch my own. My own father fondly remembers the day he pulled his boat ashore, parked it in a field and set fire to it. A boat, for those of you who didn't already know is a hole in the water into which you pour money. Burning that boat saved my dad a fortune! And no, there was no insurance or plot to scam an insurance company. Dad built the boat, as many in that part of the country used to do.
These days my shrimp come frozen, or from a restaurant. I have been noticing something a lot lately and it is really starting to tick me off. My mother went to a lot of trouble to try to teach me to use utensils, some people have even managed to devolve me into chop stick usage. I have worked hard to get where I am being able to eat most foods without getting my hands dirty. Modern shrimp meals do vex me so. Why oh why are there so many shrimp meals out there these days where the tail shell is left on? Is it suppose to be some sort of proof that this is real shrimp or something? All I know is that if I get Japanese shrimp sushi, or Italian shrimp and pasta (in that yummy pink sauce), I am going to end up getting my fingers dirty because I am going to have to pull the shells off of the tail. I HATE getting pink sauce on my fingers. It reminds me too much of my childhood in the days before I had really gotten the hang of the fork. I am no master of the fork today, but at least in most meals I will put forth a solid effort to have table manors. Shrimp shatter the illusion. Fried, I don't care about. The way the people around here overcook their shrimp the shells are crispy and crunchy and eat as well as french fries. But steamed, sautéed, or any other way I have to put down the fork, pick up the shrimp and remove the tail section, or at the very least, fork it, put half of it in my mouth and pinch off the shell (carefully such that the meat is left behind and only the shell gets tossed on the table beside my plate).
And no, as a matter of fact I am not going to stop eating shrimp. Could this be a plot to make me give up shrimp so the rest of you can have more? Well played....
