Let me start at the very beginning. As a small child, I actually enjoyed shrimp. "Enjoy" doesn't do my feelings justice. I loved shrimp with every fiber of my seven-year-old being. We would go to Old Country Buffet so I could gorge myself on mac and cheese and shrimp for ultra cheap.
Then something happened. It might have been an association between that kid who spewed at Old Country Buffet while I was eating shrimp and shrimp themselves. It might have been a simple case of over-saturation. Who can say? Whatever it was, I suddenly found shrimp disgusting. I could not stand the idea of having those things on my table, let alone in my mouth.
About two or three years ago, I realized that the egg rolls I had been eating my whole life (from the absolutely divine Mee Mah) had shrimp in them. Curse you, mood lighting, for not revealing those disgusting little creatures! But I was too old to just stop eating delicious egg rolls. (The best in the country, my father and I would argue.) I tried to pretend I had never seen the little things.
Even before I started dating Joey, he would talk about how much he and his family loved shrimp. He made it sound like they were actually a Scottish-American off-shoot of the Gump family. I would tell him that his family, like shrimp, was gross. Who would eat such ugly, disgusting, little animals? (Of course, his family is lovely. They were lovely even when I thought shrimp were the oceanic equivalent of worms.)
Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and try shrimp, securely on my "Do Not Eat" list for well over a decade, one more time. Joey was ecstatic. I was apprehensive, to say the least.
We bought Jumbo Butterfly Shrimp. I was nervous that these would be too big. Joey pointed out that "jumbo shrimp" is an oxymoron. Shrimp would never be huge. We also decided to make a whole bunch of mac and cheese in case I hated the shrimp.
So we cooked up some dinner. I nervously sat down to eat. They weren't as big as I thought they were going to be. That was a plus.
There they are. They've still got tails attached to them!
Obviously, I dipped them in tartar sauce. They tasted like tartar sauce. When I ate them plain, they tasted like fried batter. Shrimp doesn't really have a strong flavor. It seemed to just take on the flavor of whatever was closest.
I liked it. It doesn't have the same texture problem that fish does. I would totally eat this again. I don't know if I'm ready for them without any breading, but I might be ready for prawn potato chips.
Yo I'm not a huge fan of shrimp either. It really depends on how they're made.
ReplyDelete