There's something rather cathartic about playing with one's food, for lack of a better term. It's the hands-on process. If you're a baker you might find joy in working the butter through the flour with your fingers or kneading the dough by hand. Or perhaps you've mixed your meatball recipe or lasagna with your hands. It's satisfying and gets everything mixed in well, harking from more distant times when that's just how this sort of thing was done, prior to pastry cutters, stand mixers, or general views of uncleanliness. It's probably handed down to you on a family recipe from your grandmother to mix something by hand. I think it also imbues the food with love, but that's probably just me.
Now, the above picture isn't just me playing with my potential food, or even hand mixing (literally) for a recipe, it is processing fresh shrimp, which one must do by hand. We do not live far from the coast, so during shrimp season we'll drive down there, buy shrimp in bulk, putting them into ice chests filled with ice, then enjoy some time there before driving back. Once home, our task starts. We must de-head all of the shrimp (as well as going through it to pick out bits of shrimp heads or small sea creatures that were stuck in the nets) before putting them into freezer bags headed for the freezer & later our bellies in the forms of Gumbo, boiled shrimp, & fried shrimp. It's really cold as those shrimp have been on ice for about ten hours. It can be gross & slimy as well, but there's also something enjoyable and rewarding in the act & it is something I do not mind at all. Not only are the shrimp themselves slimy, but that yellow goop is fat that comes out, so that does get on your hands. You must also remove the intestinal vein, which is the black line running down the length of them. They do not smell of anything other than sea water, which is nice. It's not the gungy, fetid, dark mud smell you'll encounter when hunting for soft shell crabs or gigging for flounder... or to me when actually eating muscles. It's like salt spray if you've been on a boat, or on a pier, with the wind whipping around you. It's a very pleasant ocean smell. To me, getting shrimp fresh off the boats is a win all around. There's a mini adventure, we'll have shrimp for the entire year (we are a very shrimp loving family), I enjoy the work, & as a naturalist, I can always find specimens in our haul. I do have a number of specimens, always found & never killed, in my collection. A butterfly or bee, snake skin, abandoned bird eggs in a nest (Seriously. Abandoned for a year), as well as tree specimens (from fallen trees, limbs, & storm detritus scattered about the yard). Several of my specimens came from the sea, from the very same shrimp hauls I'm referencing here. Small squid & a crab, about the size of a lemon. I put them into vodka filled mason jars and sealed the lids with hot wax. Very old fashioned, & while not up to preservation standards of today, is something I can afford, & it does get the job done. I even attended a Marine Biology camp in the summer of my fifteenth year. While, really (& sadly) it was nothing to write home about, one aspect was a shining spot, a tour on a shrimp boat. As a shrimper one must be up early, before light, & the deck is slimy & slippery, but I was fascinated with how the book rigging worked for the netting. The drag net being let out & pulled back in & all of the shrimp splashing onto the deck. I'd never thought about being a shrimper before, but in that moment I felt it was something I could happily do. I am not a shrimper & probably won't be (the whole getting up early bit, but also your livelihood depends on what you can catch, & there's trouble with catching things anymore and poisonous algae & such), but it was quite an enjoyable experience, I think one which I was the only one impressed or happy about the expedition. It did remind me of the time The Sister & I were to go on a mission trip to Mexico. I said I'd go, but didn't think I'd much enjoy it. Not because it's Mexico, but because where we were going was the desert. I'd always imagined myself as very not a desert type of person. However, it was beautiful. I may not go and live in a desert, but actually going changed my mind on what a desert really is, there was an appreciation there that I wouldn't get from hearing about it. So, this post is to say go and explore. Whether it's obtaining fresh seafood off the boats, or whether you actually try your hand at flounder gigging or trapping crab in baskets off a pier - or any other food gathering. Perhaps hunting fresh game is not your thing (it certainly isn't mine), but perhaps you go and forage wild mushrooms or onions or herbs or churn butter from cream, or make whipped cream from scratch, or simply mixing that meatball recipe or working that butter into the flour with your hands. All of it is exploration. All of it is learning. All of it is satisfying; even if the satisfaction is having tried & knowing, now, that it's not your cup of tea.
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