By Anne Rudloe and Jack Rudloe
In the first part of the 20th century, aside from canned shrimp, it took years to convince people that fresh shrimp were fit to eat. Americans considered seafood to be mysterious and intimidating. After World War II everything changed. People became more adventurous. They had seen the world, and they weren’t content to stay in one place. Families drove to Miami Beach and New Orleans and discovered the delights of seafood. Eating shrimp was a bold and adventurous thing to do. By 2003, shrimp replaced canned tuna as America’s best-selling seafood.
“There’s a million ways to cook shrimp,” Bubba Blue told Forrest Gump in the movie of the same name. “Shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. Dey’s, uh, shrimp-kabob, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo....” Every culture or geographic area has a shrimp recipe of its own, with an endless array of spices, boils, dips, and sauces
The secret is to toss fresh whole shrimp into a pan with a half inch of beer or water, just enough to keep the shells from burning, and add spices to taste. Give it a slow heat for three to five minutes. Their heads have enough water to cook them and produce a delicious stock. Beware of overcooking, especially with royal reds.
While deep-water royal reds and Pacific pinks look cooked while still alive, shallow-water pinks, browns, and whites turn red only when they are cooked. Watching fresh shrimp in boiling water rapidly change color from brown or white to red before your eyes is very dramatic. The magic is caused by a protein called astaxanthin, a much more powerful antioxidant than vitamin A, which gives cooked shrimp, crabs, and lobsters that appetizing rosy pinkness. Astaxanthin is the same molecule found in plankton, krill, and algae that gives northern lobsters and crabs their blue color. Exactly how the color changed remained a mystery until chemists described electrons from astaxanthin bonding with other protein molecules during the cooking process and showed how that affected the absorption of light. Both crustaceans and salmon get their color from eating plankton, krill, or algae.
Shrimp ’n’ grits is a South Carolina favorite, as is jambalaya in Louisiana. Asia has endless shrimp and rice dishes, including oat shrimp, served in Thailand. The Italians serve them with spaghetti, and the Portuguese make shrimp tempura. Add to that soft-fried shrimp, batter-fried shrimp, sake steamed shrimp, drunken prawns, steamed fresh prawns, and the list goes on and on. There are indeed a million ways to cook shrimp and another million ways to season them.
Shrimp are one perpetual party, and endless shrimp and seafood festivals celebrate them. There’s a rock shrimp festival at St. Mary’s, Georgia, and a Wild-Caught Shrimp and Grits Festival on Jekyll Island. Louisiana has its Shrimp and Petroleum Festival. Florida has its Eight Flags Shrimp Festival on Amelia Island, the Everglades Festival, and the Seafood Festival in Apalachicola. From the Carolinas to Texas, seafood festivals happen in nearly every coastal town, but Alabama’s National Shrimp Festival arguably is the biggest. Smells of frying shrimp, soft-shell crab, fish, and hush puppies mingle with cotton candy and funnel cakes. Guitars and banjos twang, harmonicas play, entertainers sing country-and-western songs, and children listen to storytellers. People heap plates with food, mill about, pick over trinkets at the arts-and-crafts stands, and watch skydiving, balloons, and fireworks.
A Blessing of the Fleet often occurs. Because shrimping is so precarious, and everyone in the community knows someone who was lost at sea, wreaths are cast into the water in their memory amidst prayers for safety. For visitors it is a colorful tourist attraction, but for fishermen, it is deeply meaningful.
An economist conducted a survey for the New York Times, trying to fathom why American consumption of shrimp jumped from 1.4 pounds per person in 1980 to 4.1 pounds in 2007. Was it due to the rise of ethnic foods, the opening of many more Chinese and Thai restaurants, a change in demographics, decreasing prices, or even the popularity of the movie Forrest Gump? It turned out that a good part of the demand that sent trawlers scouring the sea worldwide and caused coastlines to be chopped into shrimp farms was created by seafood restaurant chains. Restaurants looking for fast, convenient, and tasty dishes promoted shrimp. Red Lobster, Captain D’s, and others have saturated the nation with television commercials depicting happy people eating shrimp, until America has become a shrimp-eating nation.