Scampi



Here’s a little trivia question for all you movie buffs out there: In Forrest Gump, what most delectable dish did Bubba Blue neglect to mention in his famous shrimp diatribe? *

This quiz, I realize, is a tad anticlimactic since you’ve probably already noticed the title of this article. However, I do find it peculiar that over the course of several days of doing nothing but list possible preparations of shrimp, Bubba left out the most popular shrimp dish in U.S. history: scampi. Next to canned tuna fish, shrimp is the leading seafood consumed by the American public, and scampi is its number one preparation. The U.S. is the top importer of farmed shrimp, bringing in between 260,000 and 400,000 tons a year (and that’s just the farmed stuff – about 50% of the total trade), so if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that easily 100,000 tons of scampi is eaten in this country on a yearly basis.

Over drinks last night with Cristina, I mentioned that scampi was on the menu, and she said she had just made it the night before, a coincidence we both found uncanny at the time. After looking up the numbers, I realize that I might well have had the same revelation with any number of people at the same bar. What I’m getting at is that dinner last night was not particularly creative or original – millions of other Americans were probably eating the same thing. But that didn’t make it any less tasty.

I had about a pound of large shrimp in the freezer, so I thawed, rinsed and shelled them and set them aside. I heated some butter and olive oil and sautéed 4 cloves of sliced garlic until it was fragrant and golden. Then the shrimp went in until just pink, at which point I took the pan off the heat. I added a splash of white wine, the juice of one lemon, a bunch of chopped parsley, some salt and some crushed red pepper, mixed it all up and served it over penne (I would have gone for a linguine or angel hair product, but was sadly without).

“Scampi” actually means shrimp in Italian, so “shrimp scampi” is like saying “shrimp shrimp” – think, for instance if “veal vitello” or “cheese formaggio” started showing up on menus. But like the ATM machine before it, shrimp scampi has become part of the American idiom, and quite frankly, the name means very little after one bite. The scampi was lemony, buttery, garlicky, hot with flakes of red pepper. The shrimp had just reached that magic moment where they burst in your mouth, and I at once understood why shrimp scampi is so well-loved: it is delicious delizioso.


*For those of you who still doubt this claim, check out the quote for yourselves: “Shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sauté it. There’s, um, shrimp kebabs, shrimp Creole, shrimp gumbo, pan fried, deep fried, stir fried. There’s pineapple shrimp and lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich... That’s... that’s about it.”

Posted: Fri - June 18, 2004 at 04:36 PM      

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