My husband posted yesterday about my distaste for shrimp. When he and I first started dating, I tried to be more adventurous in my eating habits. Even though raw oysters are basically cold mucous on a shell and I am pretty sure every single one of them is just waiting there, slimily, for the chance to give me food poisoning, I still pretended to like them. “Mmm, so delicious,” I said, trying not to visibly gag and ruin the illusion that I was as sophisticated as he was. When he cooked goat, I agreed with him that it was a delicious and underrated meat even though I secretly thought it tasted like sweaty gym socks had a baby with an armpit. I gamely sampled octopus and tongue tacos and foods with mushrooms (tiny chewy ears!). But when he suggested making a shrimp risotto one night, I had to shut it down.
“I don’t eat shrimp,” I told him.
I don’t actually recall how the conversation went from there, but based on the approximately 80 gajillion conversations on this topic I’ve had with everyone else, I assume it went thus:
“Oh, you’re allergic?”
“No, I just don’t like it.”
“But … you’re from New Orleans. How can you not like shrimp?”
Errol Laborde has gone on the record as saying he never would have hired me if I’d disclosed my shrimp aversion in the job interview. Every person I meet, both from here and from elsewhere, can’t accept that a New Orleanian doesn’t like shrimp. My own mother and father seem as shocked as anyone: “You loved it when you were a baby,” they insist.
I can’t explain it. It’s not a texture thing – I love crawfish and, although I’ve eaten it less often than crawfish, I like lobster, too. I’m a big fan of crab meat, and I actually think oysters are wonderful as long as they’re not raw. I am absolutely pro-seafood generally … I am just anti-shrimp specifically, and that covers any way you could think to prepare them. I have tried them boiled, fried, poached, made into a bisque, thrown into gumbo, soaked in butter, mixed with pasta … basically every way Bubba listed in Forrest Gump. I have at least sampled because I keep thinking maybe I’m missing something. But I’m not. I just … don’t like shrimp.
I’m really not a picky eater, even if I’m not as open-minded as I first made myself out to be. I won’t eat raisins or organ meats; I would really rather not eat angel hair pasta because the name itself grosses me out (my husband calls it “cappellini” to try to get it past me, but he’s not fooling me with that fancy Italian shit – it’s still thin enough that it reminds me of hair). I’m neutral on mushrooms and red peppers; I can eat them, but I will never choose them off of a menu. Barbecue is fine, but if it’s not North Carolina barbecue, it’s not really something I’m ever going to crave.
We started discussing overrated foods in my office the other day, and it was shocking how much disagreement there was.
One person said Nutella, and another said that was blasphemy. One person said avocado and was promptly told to shut her fool mouth. One person was brave enough to say bacon but was quickly shouted down. I like all of those things, along with quinoa and kale and tofu and olives and blue cheese and marzipan and cilantro and mayonnaise.
I may not be quite the adventurous eater I pretended to be (for the record, my husband totally agreed with me during the heady days of our courtship that Law & Order: SVU was an incredible show, and now he openly mocks it), but I truly am pretty open-minded.
Just not about shrimp. Everyone has their limits.
