local shrimps

in late september or early october, can't remember the exact day, a neighboring farm was emptying their shrimp ponds and selling fresh, fresh, fresh local pond-raised shrimps. last year was their first year for harvest and since we support local ag, we dutifully purchased a few pounds of the fresh shrimpies and brought them home. Again this year, we stopped by on the designated "shrimp sale day" and made another two pound purchase.

the scrimps are actually prawns. they are bred for pond rearing in this type of climate. a harvest is made each fall when the weather starts to turn cold and the water temperature drops. the shrimps are killed in cold water, sometimes right before you eyes if you get their early.

the scrimpies are sold whole at $9 lb. kinda pricy considering you get the whole shrimp. some shrimps are large, other small. you get "ungraded" sizes in each pound. both times we have gotten local whole shrimp i have cut myself on their sharp serated knife-like horns while cleaning them. both times i did not use the stock quick enough and had to feed it to the cats. other than that, they are very tasty. we made a scampie with them. delicious!

overall, i'd have to give the local shrimp experience a 6 out of 10. i love the fact that the shriimp are local. it's kinda neat to have the heads for stock, if i ever do anything with it. the drawbacks are that the shrimp was ungraded for size and there was extra prep time before eating. i will continue to buy a few pounds each year to show support, but make large shrimp purchases elsewhere.