Shrimp

Today

Why is it that people think that vegetarians eat fish? The whole point of being veggie is that you don't consume flesh. At our choir social last night our kind and generous hosts provided a vegetarian risotto that was full of prawns. That the hostess tried to rummage around to find a prawnless bit was missing the point. Instead I had a very nice couscous with apricots and almonds, drank plenty of Pinot Grigio and decided that I was fine.

In My Day

My dislike of seafood, even when I was otherwise willing to eat fish, probably stems from those childhood visits to Brighton when the first thing Daddy would do was buy us each a pint of shrimps. These creatures had to be taken out of a greasy paper bag, then their shells, heads and legs had to be removed before you were able to find that tiny morsel of pink, salty, rubbery flesh. What was there to like about this experience?

When I was doing the COP training, back in 1986, the computer liaison officer at the Bexhill Tax Office where I was carrying out the training, very kindly invited me to her home for supper.

She and her husband were just starting out and were clearly not especially well off. But they'd cooked me a wonderful, expensive meal, starting with the biggest prawn cocktail I'd ever seen. Prawns were an expensive luxury then so I could hardly refuse.

"Oh, .....," I said "You have gone to a lot of trouble!" and proceeded to swallow each one whole so as to minimise the taste and avoid that dreadful rubbery texture. With some difficulty I avoided seconds. And the rest of the meal was fine.

The worst thing about prawns and shrimps is the way their little beady eyes look at you while you're unpeeling them.