#484 Scampering Scampi

So not too long ago I was in Hawaii and I chanced to sample some of the island cuisine. One of the dishes I tried was shrimp. But not the shrimp I was used to. This was the full-on shell type, head and all. When the waiter first brought me the plate, for some reason I thought of the film “Alien.” And something bursting through my tummy on its way out to terrorize the world. Except, I was about to voluntarily put it into my tummy. I had never encountered a complete shrimp before and frankly, I was appalled. It was like ordering a steak and having the wait staff come out with a cleaver and a cow. Some things are best left for others if we are to maintain our genteel omnivorous society. Why is it, by the way, that we “gut” game animals, “clean” fish, and “de-vein” a shrimp? Are they telling me that vein thing is its digestive tract? Eeyew.
It’s really interesting how many shrimp-like things there are. You got your shrimp, which appear to vary in size from about an inch to about 3 inches. Then you got your scampi, whose name seems to relate to how hard they are to catch—you know, because they’re scampering away. Then you got your prawn, which is to your ordinary shrimp like Johnny Holmes is to that Harvey Keitel guy in the Piano. Then, apparently, the langostino, which is a macho Latin lobster wannabee, then your rock lobster, famous for its tail, and your Maine lobster, famous for the whistling noise it makes when you dip it live into boiling water. As if any scream can be called something as innocuous as a whistle.
But as the shrimp on my Hawaiian plate reminded me, all of them are nothing more than insects of the ocean. Big ol’ waterborne cockroaches, with antennae and feelers and icky tiny little articulated legs. What’s for dinner Mom? Crickets of the sea, kids. And you thought smiling motorcyclists were the only people who ate bugs.
America, ya gotta love it