I love shellfish. No, I take that back. I looooooooove shellfish. Having said that, I’ve always found them inherently creepy in their natural states. I’ve only ever once had a full lobster and the legs! Oh, Og, the legs!
But the future in-laws brought up shrimp from Chinatown downstate, and we’re making shrimp scampi. I came home to find him peeling a whole bunch and deveining them. It was going to take a while, so I offered to help.
Man that was creepy. With their little slimy legs, and no heads. I didn’t know whether to cry over them (and I admit, I had a tear in my eye, although whether it was from pity or horror I’m not sure) or throw them away in disgust that I was eating such a thing. But I did them all, and then learned how to properly devein them too. I’m so proud of myself!
And I’m looking forward to that shrimp scampi! Mm-mm!
Good on you, Anaamika. You are no longer a shrimp-shelling virgin!
I’m addicted to the little bugs myself, as well as to all shellfish. I was watching a cooking show the other day which recommended calculating one pound of shrimp for serving four people. Har! It is to laugh. Mr. Pug and I can down a pound easy, between the two of us. I hope the scampi turns out great.
I worked as a kitchen porter for a couple of months up in Port Appin, Scotland. One of my duties was to separate the heads and bodies of freshly cookedDublin Bay prawns (aka langoustine or scampi).
So, anyhow, I had been doing this for a few days, and got quite good at splitting them in half, shelling the rear portions and deveining them. (We reserved the top half as an element of our salad presentation. It looked a bit creepy, this half-prawn offering up some lettuce greens to the diner…) It got pretty automatic and half the time my mind was in a different world. One day, as I’m doing my job over the sink along with the sous chef, one of the cooked critters moves and wraps its tail around my fingers. Eek!! I squeaked like a little girl and promptly dropped my prawn and paring knife. I totally expected to be made fun of, but the sous-chef just stared straight ahead and said, “I know. I hate it when they do that do,” and continued along his business.
Problem was, from then on, I expected every prawn to wiggle around my fingers, and it creeped me out. (Although I don’t think it happened again.)
Never had one wiggle on me though. And I’ve never peeled them with the heads still on, which I think would skeeve me out a little bit. You’d think, after the whole bullfrog thing, that I could peel a simple little headed shrimp.
So far as I remember, yes. But that doesn’t make much sense now, does it? I suppose I may be misremembering, and they might have simply been dead and frozen, but at any rate, they weren’t moving when I was a-peelin’ 'em.
When we visit my grandmother in Norfolk, she knows I love shrimp, and insists on buying pounds of the local offering. These are little tiny shrimp, not peeled. It takes about a minute per shrimp to peel them for a couple of grams of shrimp meat. Very tasty, but good lord, the time it took.
I usually buy them raw with the heads on, stir-fry them for just a few seconds, then decapitate/peel/devein them. I find it easier this way then when they’re raw. All the cut off bits get chopped up and given to the cat (who, it must be admitted, also gets a few bits of the “good stuff” as well).
Were you by any chance working at the Airds Hotel? I’ve been past it, but never eaten there. The food’s supposed to be wonderful, if a little expensive.
That’s one of my favorite parts of Scotland. Many Dopers will recognize Castle Stalker, which became Castle Aaaargh!, the “last resting place of the Most Holy Grrrrrrail!” in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Anaamika, you do know those really aren’t veins you are removing along the “spine” of the shrimp don’t you?
When buying fresh shrimp (is there really any other way?) you should always try and buy them with the heads on. Sure they cost a little more because of the weight, but it’s the heads that really look yucky first when the shrimp start to get old and go bad. It’s an old trick to de-head old shrimp and sell them.
Crawfish pie? Okay but boiled crawfish is the best. Peel while you eat. Check out Richards in Abbeville Louisiana - down the road from Lafayette. Turned my vegetarian daughter into a seafood eater. Eating them fast takes practice - I honed my skills at the department crawfish boil, where a big pot full was tossed on a table, and he who peeled fastest ate the most.
Yum.
Picking crabs after they get boiled is fun too, especially when you catch them at the Jersey Shore off the dock of your rented house. And when I was a kid I’d pick up lobsters for my parents and ride them home on my bike.
I had a Chinese friend who was simply awestruck when we went trolling for benthic organisms on the bottom of Mobile Bay one day. We pulled up the net, and there were hundreds of ENORMOUS shrimp there. He pulled one up half as long as his forearm, with antennae that stretched two feet or more and got this teary, almost worshipful look in his eye.
“Tom,” he said, “I am eating this.”
I had to gently explain to him that he didn’t want to eat anything that had been crawling through the muck at the bottom of Mobile Bay. He parted with his new friend with an almost physical regret.
Stupid, stupid Leesha. Never open food-related threads unless you plan on eating within the next half-hour. Otherwise, you’ll get hungried up for nothing. :smack:
