Shrimp for the Land-locked

Before bad financial times, I traveled spring and fall to the Gulf Coast. St. George Island. Cape San Blas. Cedar Key. Fairhope. Fort Morgan. I bought my shrimp at Billy's Seafood and from the Dall's truck and at Robinson's Seafood. This shrimp, except for Royal Reds, was straight off the boat and never frozen. The best one can buy. And superb eating. Between trips, I never bought shrimp.

Yet life changes, and the shrimp lover who cannot travel south will have to compromise. I began buying bagged frozen shrimp this past fall.I prefer it to the previously frozen, now thawed shrimp on ice. I have tried both frozen wild caught from the Gulf, and farmed shrimp from Asia. I bought my seafood at one of the better grocery chains in Nashville. And it pains me to write, because it is so counterintuitive, that the farmed shrimp was better. It came de-veined and passed the sniff test. It was sweet and juicy.

When I opened the bag of wild shrimp I smelled lost time. I washed them, then sauteed them in butter, clam juice, and cream. They still had a whiff to them. They were rubbery and tasteless. So I tried another bag. These were worse. They smelled rotten after I thawed them. But my porch possum did not turn up his nose at them.

I do not like food sauced with guilt, and so much of our food comes covered with it.
That includes farmed shrimp, which are accused of harboring antibiotics and chemicals and of ruining mangrove swamps. Yet look what has happened in our American Mediterranean- the Gulf of Mexico. Are our wild caught shrimp pristine? What has oil sludge done to them? And what will happen when radioactive waste rains down on sea and land, as it is already doing?

I am an agnostic, but I do believe that this is a fallen world. Look at the past year. Horrific flooding in this city-. of homes where homes should never have been. The Gulf oil spill. The contamination of Japan.

Weighty, forlorn thoughts , brought on by a bag of shrimp.