For the love of prawns (part 1)

Let me be clear.

When I say "prawns" I am not talking about "shrimp." A prawn is a thing of beauty. A succulent, briny, complex creature, prepared in its whole form.

Not raised in a farm full of toxic refuse and antibiotics, and then packaged and sold, frozen. Not some tiny curled up thing, headless, pale, with a vaguely spoiled, off-texture between chewy and crunchy.
Not some sad pale half circle, dipped in batter, fried with only the tiny pink tail peeking out.

I am talking about prawns.

A prawn is prepared, whole, complete with shell and head. Eyes, even. There are tiger prawns almost as big as lobster, king prawns larger than your hand. When you eat them, it's messy and fabulous. When they are coated in sauce, you end the experience happily sucking spice and tamarind from underneath your fingernails. The scent of them is everywhere.  A true lover of prawns peels the shell by hand and eats the tiny crunchy parts. Takes the head and drinks in everything inside.

When you are lucky, you might find a tiny pink sack of eggs, somewhere near the head. It's a treasure that tastes of salt and sea.

To prepare them best, be sure not to overcook them. There is nothing worse than to take a beautiful large prawn and roast the hell of it-- leaving the texture remeniscent of leather or plastic. If they are undercooked, you risk some slight funky taste from the head. You drink it and then wonder to yourself, "Hmmm. I just ate slightly undercooked prawn brain. I'm not sure how I feel about that." And then cross your fingers and hope you won't be spending the rest of your evening in the toilet.

But eating should be adventure, I think. Life is short, as they say.

Our Prawn Love Affair began when Michael and I were living in Barcelona, in 2010.  I'll never forget the first time, when we first stepped our toes into what we become a life long pursuit. We were in El Born, a neighborhood in the older part of the city. We were wondering through the beautiful tiny dark streets, eager for a local place to try something new, something unique.  It often takes us a small lifetime to choose a restaurant when wandering, as we both suffer from the But What If There is the Perfect Place Right Around the Corner disease. But, occasionally, we have to bite the bullet and commit even if it means perhaps being disappointed.

On that particular fall night, we were tired, grumpy, and eager to just pick a damn place already. We found a tiny shop decorated with various suggestions of the fishing industry-- outside, a large wooden barell, inside, netting hanging from the ceiling. On the wall inside, a mural painted on tiles of a seashore scene-- boats and waves and little houses by the beach. A small TV played a soccer game. We found a table and were given a plastic coated menu with large pictures of all the items on offer.

I don't remember the name of the place. Perhaps someone who reads this in Barcelona can help me out. In any event-- we ordered prawns and they arrived-- cooked quickly in a pan, flavored simply with garlic and oil and plenty of salt. This was our introduction to "Gambas a La Plancha." 


I can't recall now which of us with the first to take the Plunge into Prawn Head Eating-- but we did. It was terrifying and amazing. You peel off the little legs, then the shell of the body, and then pull back the shell of the head, to reveal the strange multi-colored mess inside. The taste of the head is nothing like the body-- it is bitter, saltly, and umami in a way unlike anything else. I was surprised that Michael was eager to try peeling and eating the whole thing-- he has always been hesitant to eat hard shelled crabs on the Eastern Seaboard in the US. But we had both watched a lot of Anthony Bourdian, and one of his strongest messages is: For goodness sake, eat the head! It's the best part.

And so we did. And we've been hooked ever since. The photo above was taken at our favorite place to get Gambas a La Plancha-- La Paradeta, also in El Born in Barcelona. You have to wait outside on a line to get in-- and when you enter, there is a huge seafood counter in front of you. You point to what you want and then wait for it to be prepared. The prawns are perfect. Garlicy, sweet, tender. Never overcooked. If you go to Barcelona-- go there. Trust me.

When we left Spain I mourned, perhaps more than anything, the loss of Gambas from our life. How could any place ever top the spectacular prawns of Catalunya?

Well. I hate to say it. But I'm sorry, dear Barcelona. You've been topped.

Not once. But many times over, and in many different ways. Perhaps it isn't fair to say-- perhaps I should not hold Prawn Competitions in my own mind-- but I now believe the best are in Vietnam. Or Thailand. Or India. Or... surprisingly... Oman.

Let me share, for a moment, the most spectacular prawn experience I've had to date. It was here, in India. My friends and I were traveling on a houseboat through the backwaters of Kerala. For our evening meal, the captain pulled the boat over to the shore to find some local seafood. At a small hut by the water, three gentleman showed us their wares from styrofoam coolers. It was not a fancy set up, by any stretch of the imagination. Two rows of coolers, a rusty metal scale, and a tin for cash and change. We bargained as best we could. I knew I wanted prawns-- the best prawns available- so we invested and bought the largest creatures I've ever seen. It may not be fair to call them prawns, really, as they were almost lobsters. But, officially, they were tiger prawns, caught right there in the waters near Kerala. Netted by these fishermen or their friends, brought to be sold to the eager tourists in their houseboats. Once we choose our amount, they are placed in plastic bags and given to our chef and houseboat captain.

So we bought a few and they were prepared on the boat in the makeshift kitchen at the back. Their kitchen? Two burners fueled by a mini propane tank. To prepare the dish? Two pans and plenty of spices, oil, ghee. The result? Prawn perfection. Sweet in the body and salty in the head. Tender flesh that melts in the mouth with little to no bite or give. Pink and healthy.  Enormous-- the largest prawns I've ever seen-- so big I can only eat two. And I have been known to eat eight Gambas in Spain in one sitting. These-- they are not so easily conquered.

But unforgettable. 

What lingers...

I am obsessed.

Certifiably, perhaps. Plagued by constant mental revisitation? Certainly.  Perhaps it is unhealthy, perhaps it is bizarre. But I am caught, forever, in a mental hamster wheel. There are memories that I lose, easily--- the location of my keys, the e-mail I was supposed to send, the thing that I was supposed to do yesterday that was so important but I completely forgot to do-- but some things I hold on to, indefinitely.

The first bite of my first brioche.

The nose filling, palette swimming, dark punch of a creamy Catalan cheese.

The burn of that spicy fish I ate in Chiang Mai, Thailand-- so spicy I thought I had suddenly come down with a fever, sweat gathering in the folds of my elbows.

Black truffles, sliced thin and placed on a scallop, in a cafe in Paris, in Bellville.

The first time I tasted duck.

Smoked mussels on the deck of a sail boat of the island of St. Johns.

Bright green olives slightly cured served in huge bowls in the Tuscan countryside. My classmates remembered the wine-- I couldn't forget the olives.  To this day I search for them, in vain. I have never again found those incredible, meaty, perfect ovals of green.

Snails cooked with lemongrass and chili, prepared for us at a "fresh beer" shop on the streets of Hanoi.

Roast corn, cooked on coals, on the beaches of Chennai, India.

A bagel with cream cheese, lox, and tomato at Rachel's Nosheri, in Center City, Philadelphia.

It's true that I love to travel, to explore the world and see the sights.  I can do the tourist thing and take the obligatory photos of the obligatory important spots. But what I love most of all is to eat. And everything I eat becomes a tangible memory for me-- the taste and smell is easily conjured up at will, allowing me to relive the most spectacular moments when I need them. When I leave a place-- it is the food that I carry with me, more than anything else.  My family would say this is because we are Jews-- after a trip, the first question we ask ourselves and each other is: "And what did you eat?" I'm not sure why this is a particularly Jewish trait but perhaps it has something to do with the deep connection between food and celebration-- at Passover, we feast; at Yom Kippur we break the fast; we define ourselves by the special things we eat and those we avoid. Try to explain the joy of gefilte fish to a gentile and you'll see what I mean. Or try to tell a Jew to eat their bagel with butter, not cream cheese.

My relationship with food has not always been easy. When you are obsessed with food-- consumed by the constant exploration of everything you let pass your lips-- you can easily become unable to think of anything other than calories, fat, excess. You lie awake at night cursing yourself for your thoughtlessness, your momentary slips in vigilance. How could you be so careless! You must watch everything with perfect precision-- you must control intake because if you don't, who will? No one can protect you from yourself.

But I'd like to believe my food obsession has found a healthier plane. Now a days I am obsessed with the idea of food from the cultural roots of it to the making of it. My bookshelves contain more tomes on food than most anything else. I've watched every food/travel TV show there is-- my favorites being Bizarre Foods and No Reservations. I pride myself on finding the most local, most obscure, most extreme food experiences I can when we travel.

That being said, I hate mayonnaise. And I've avoided pork and beef for more than twenty years. For a long time, I was a vegetarian. Then I tasted duck for the first time in France-- and I was hooked. Now I'm a "when-the-mood-strikes-me-atarian"- that is to say-- I am mostly vegetarian, except when I am confronted with things I cannot live without: huge head-on prawns, duck, roast chicken, snails, crabs, fish eggs...  Some might call that being a BullshitAtarian. Or at least a HypocriteAtarian.  I'm not sure what I am but I long ago decided that I won't feel guilty for making my own choices. I am plagued enough by Food Related Guilt.  I can forgive myself the treat of fish eggs, a few times a year. Who can deny themselves salt-and-spicy roasted crab legs in Vietnam? Not me.

So why write a blog about all of this? I mean- who cares? Perhaps no one does, but this is the curse of the obsessed: we don't know what to do with all of our excess thoughts. We can lie awake and think about them. We can bore our husbands to death as we ramble on and on about "the complexities of flavor in the spice rub" over yet another meal. Or we can put it all down somewhere so perhaps we can get on with the rest of the business of our lives. I know I must have mental space for something else rather than trying to conjure up in my sensory mind the exact tang of the tamarind flavoring in those prawns in Saigon.

So forgive me. In advance. I need a space to obsess and share. I need to find some use for all of these memories, and perhaps at the same time inspire those who are traveling to a given location to try something new. I am full of food-related travel advice. Maybe you want to hear it, maybe you don't. It's a blog- you don't have to read it. I won't force you.

But I'll write it because I need to. The hamster wheel brain stops for nothing.