Why I’m Not a Local

Besides the horribly slow Internet connections here in Shanghai (which are practically driving me nuts as I try to post to this blog), I still have no idea how the locals manage to eat their shrimp – with nothing but a pair of chopsticks. Several times now I have ordered a shrimp or prawn dish at a local restaurant here, only to have the shrimp come out fully cooked and, you guessed it, entirely whole. Head, legs, shell, feathers and all. Now I love shrimp, and have peeled plenty of the little cockroaches-of-the-sea in my life time. I have even shelled several times including pulling the head off. In fact I’ve thought about entering a shelling contest or two. So to put it lightly, I don’t consider myself an amateur-shrimp-sheller (or is it de-sheller).

But I have no idea how to peel it when it is already mixed in a thick heavy brown sauce with vegetables and the like already in the dish. It looks very funny when I reach my hand across the table to pull out the shrimp and have to shake off the thick gooey sauce from my hands so I can quickly pull the meat from the shrimp and throw it back into the dish. And it makes a very big mess- especially considering they don’t typically offer napkins at restaurants in Shanghai! But I seem to have digressed into a very messy eater over here anyhow, so that is not my main concern- rather it is the timing of eating a steaming hot dish without scalding my hands that has me thinking about alternatives.

After some discussion, Caro and I imagine (but have yet to visually confirm this), that you must bite into the thing whole and then spit out the legs and shell that you decide not to swallow. I think I’ll stick with burning my hands, thank you very much.