Not OOP--serving shrimp (was Re: [Sca-cooks] OP: shrimps

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Pixel, Goddess and Queen:
>Mightily wrenching the topic around to something vaguely period:
>
>In C. Anne Wilson's  _Food in Britain_, she talks about shrimp being eaten
>in period and that they were served with vinegar. But that's all that she
>says. How would one go about cooking and serving shrimp, for, say, a 13th
>c. feast? Or would this have been considered low-class and not served?

MS Harl. 4016 says to "Take Shrympes, and seth hem in water and a 
litull salt, and lete hem boile ones or a litull more. And serue hem 
forthe colde; And no manere sauce but vinegre."

I believe Taillevent says something similar, but can't check on it now.

>On Tue, 2 Dec 2003, Barbara Benson wrote:
>
>>  Greetings,
>>
>>  Having spent my formative years on the east coast on an island with a major
>>  shrimp industry I can vouch for the fact that it is possible to pull the
>>  entirety of the shrimp out of the tail shell. You have to use your fingers,
>>  and I was just trying to describe how to do it and failed miserably - I
>>  could show you! It takes pratice, just like taking the very last bit out of
>  > hard shell crabs.

The method Reb Avraham describes (bite near the tail fins through 
part of the shell structure, to sever the thicker part of the tail 
section meat from the anchoring fin meat) is pretty close to what I 
generally do when presented with a cooked shrimp in the shell. 
Alternately, a good hard pinch between forefinger and thumb can 
usually accomplish much the same thing.

For raw shrimp, it's easy enough to remove even the little fin part 
of the tail, as long as the shrimp are fresh and you don't use too 
much force all at once. You can even do it with cooked shrimp, but 
it's generally not worth it, whereas recovering that one-inch section 
of tail meat is a little more profitable than bothering with the fins 
themselves.

>  It has never occured to me that it might be non-polite,
>>  there are just some things you eat with your fingers: shrimp, fried chicken,
>>  french fries, sandwiches, cookies, corn on the cob.....ummm getting hungry
>>  now!

I think the problem is that Miss Manners and others of her ilk, 
people like Amy Vanderbilt, etc., have taught us [often erroneously] 
that it is the responsibility of "foreign" and regional cuisines to 
adapt to what we consider good manners, rather than our 
responsibility to adapt our good manners to the source culture.

So, for example, I really love watching people agonizing over picking 
up nigirizushi with chopsticks (or, for that matter, Thai or 
Vietnamese food) because everyone in the world, _except_ the fine 
people of Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam, respectively, knows that 
these foods are eaten with chopsticks. Right??? Aren't they? You mean 
they're not???

I dearly love a shoyu-and-wasabe stain on a really expensive silk 
necktie ;-). I don't get them myself, so I have to enjoy them 
vicariously via the people who can't pick up a cold, firm, 
essentially dry ball of rice with their fingers.

Maybe this comes from my formative years spent watching my father eat 
pizza with a knife and fork.

Of course, one might argue that the idea of removing the bits of 
shell from the mouth with the fork is a concession to the basic 
respect for other cultures that I have been advocating: the standard 
Chinese solution, for example, is to bite off chunks of shrimp, shell 
and all, and remove the shell from the mouth with the chopsticks 
(since the Chinese, unlike the Thai and Vietnamese people, or many 
Japanese when eating sushi, actually do eat with chopsticks, much of 
the time).

>  > Now, as to why they are left on, the only thing I can guess is 
>presentation.

Presentation, combined with a desire to keep the beastie from curling 
up too much, and afford a handle. That, and some (not unjustified, 
overall) idea that shrimp cooked in the shell are juicier. Now, while 
I don't see it as a case of conspicuous consumption, where perceived 
waste is a goal to be striven for, it seems that waste is not a 
deterrent for the people who just cut them off at the knuckle.

>  > Now, if we are ever on the coast together I will teach you how to throw a
>>  cast net and pop their little heads off just before you put them into the
>  > boil.

Heavens to Murgatroyd, why pop their heads off at all, if you're 
cooking them in the shell? Unless, of course, you bought them that 
way?

Adamantius