Monday, June 28, 2010
Foods Sopapilla's Shrimp, You're So Vein
Posted by Carrington Fox on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 7:22 AM
- ian.umces.edu
"You know that line on top of the shrimp? That’s feces," the sage of The Office points out, with the enviable bluntness bred from life on a Scranton-area root farm.
That's what I wanted to say the other day when dining at Sopapilla's, the subject of this week's dining review. While I enjoyed the fresh bounty of jicama, shrimp, walnuts and goat cheese that adorned the chipotle honey shrimp salad, I wished the shrimp had been cleaned.
Sopapilla's is far from the only eatery that overlooks the pasty gray filament of crap in its shellfish. As perfect as La Hacienda's shrimp soup is, it would be even better if the shrimp didn't still have their guts. If I think too hard about it, I feel like I'm flossing with a very tiny intestine.
I haven't done an exhaustive count, by any means, but I'm guessing that deveined shrimp are the exception rather than the rule in these parts. I know, I know, life is short and deveining shrimp is tedious. But I can't help siding with the Beetmaster on this one: Shrimp poop = yuck.
Actually, I don't mean to put words into Dwight's mouth. After all, he simply said, "That's feces." He didn't say whether that's a bad thing. You never know with DKS.
How about you? Do you care whether your shrimp are deveined?
Comments (10)
Showing 1-10 of 10
properly cleaning shrimp is non-negotiable for me. it's simple to do - we have one of those plastic poo grabber tools at home, and it works great. so if the novice home chef can do it, restaurants have no excuse.
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Absolutely -- shrimp need to be deveined. Tedious? Yes. Optional? No. I'd also prefer de-tailed unless they are to be eaten individually as finger food.
I won't order a shrimp dish if the restaurant doesn't de-vein, and I do ask. I have no problems with eating offal. I love tripe dishes like pho and menudo, but the Vietnamese and Mexican places who serve dishes with tripe make sure to clean the innards they serve. If these inexpensive ethnic eateries can scrub pig or cow guts, then surely more upscale places can de-vein their shrimp.
But it's shockingly rare for most restaurants to clean and de-vein their shrimp, even though it makes a tremendous difference in the quality of the food. It's worth sending a shrimp dish back if these places are serving crustacean shit to paying customers-- maybe they'll get the message.
Peeled and devained from Publix. Worth the extra $1 per pound. I love to shop there, it's like Whole Foods but I can still keep 75% of my paycheck.
Y'all may think me a barbarian, but the gray vein doesn't bother me. For one thing, it's cooked. For another thing, shrimp live on a diet of plankton and algae. If shrimp had diapers, they probably wouldn't even smell poopy.
I agree that the vein should be removed for aesthetic and courtesy reasons, but it doesn't gross me out.
I just threw up in my mouth a little. However the image of shrimp in diapers help ease my stomach.
Dave, understand that Publix is at the bottom of the list when it comes to procuring sustainable seafood. For that reason alone I do not patronize that section of their store.
Dana - wrong. They only eat that diet when they are very small. As adults they are bottom feeding scavengers, forbidden by orthodox Jewish as bottom feeders. This is from a huge seafood company in the Netherlands:
http://www.heiploeg.nl/wat-eet-een-garnaal.en_US.html
OH, and on the topic of veins... You piss and moan about that? You had better brace yourself for what you actually eat, hahaha.
Start with this BoingBoing post and follow the link to the New York Times. Happy eating!
http://boingboing.net/2009/02/13/our-food-is-full-of.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/opinion/13levy.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1277820082-+9hZ4kZ86dmTbCRnUmIQxA
Tastes like chicken~!
The fact that shrimp eat smaller shrimp and dead crabs still doesn't gross me out.
And I am well-aware that U.S. food regulations permit all kinds of bugs and other unpleasant things. In fact, that's part of my point.
It's very easy to go into freakout mode over food, but I eat at restaurants for a living. I know all the facts you mention (and many more), but I choose not to be squeamish. That would close too many doors.
A book I found very illuminating is 'Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture' by the late anthropologist Marvin Harris. I don't agree with everything he says, but it's clear that in many cases, what foods humans find taboo (or gross) are simply a product of cultural upbringing.
Whatever you don't eat as part of your culture (or don't know you eat, in the case of dead bugs) is gross.
Obviously, there are things that aren't safe to eat, but otherwise, I try to be liberal in my judgments (like not really caring about the gray vein in cooked shrimp).
I just ate the Chipotle Honey Shrimp Salad at Sopapilla's last week and didn't even notice if the shrimp had the vein or not. Even if it did, I wouldn't have cared. I devein shrimp if I'm cooking it at home, but I can honestly say that I don't pay one bit of attention to it if I'm eating it in a restaurant.
Dana makes a really good point above about what different cultures deem taboo. I just had that very conversation with someone yesterday when they turned up their nose at something I had eaten in China a few weeks ago. If I had a queasy stomach or was just too close-minded to experiment with new foods, I probably would have lost 5 lbs in China instead of gaining 5.
Carrington- I am so sorry that you had some shrimp of ours that were not deveined. We purchase shrimp that our already supposed to be deveined. I will have our cooks pay more attention to it. It does seem like you have just jumped on this one issue with our restaurant and overlook many things we are doing well. What is your favorite mexican food restaurant here? Did you read the Tennessean article? They did a great job of giving the readers a good history of New Mexican cuisine and a very fair and accurate review of the restaurant. We are a brand independent restaurant and I am very proud of the success that we are already seeing. Give us another try and see if we can get your shrimp right for you. -steve
