How to Tell Wild Shrimp from Farmed: Red Leggings

How to Tell if a Shrimp is Wild

If your shrimp is clutching a bottle of Malibu rum and running into the street, drunk dialing ex-boyfriends and screeching, "Woooo Hooooooooooooooo!!" at the top of its lungs, then yes, it's pretty wild.



Otherwise, sustainable, wild-caught shrimp (these from the waters of Port Royal, right near Beaufort, SC) are easy to distinguish from icky, farm-raised shrimp: wild shrimp have pinkish-red legs.

(Thank you, Friendly Safeway Fishmonger Man, for sharing that helpful bit of information with me last year!)












Found myself in Frogmore, SC with a one-item shopping list: SHRIMP.

Best to get it from the source, so we headed to the marsh-front mainstay, Gay Fish Co.













This place is perfect.























They know their audience and they keep it simple.
















Frogmore stew is as simple as it gets: boil up some potatoes, corn, sausage, and shrimp with a bunch of Old Bay seasoning powder. Done.

(Some people add onion.)













The dock behind Gay Fish Co. is a nice place for a breather.

Just don't inhale too deeply cause it's a marsh, and marshes always smell like a raccoon's been dragging dead fiddler crabs up and down the pluff mud.

(Which they have been, actually.)










Dock lockers.


















Someone's been busy arranging detritus out back.























Thoroughfare.


















Outside and Obsolete.























Next stop: over the dunes and off to the beach. Where the beauty gets so huge it's shocking -- more on that next time!
****
photos: TB

Comments

  1. yum! i can't wait to eat some shrimp with you. i laughed out loud when i read the first line.

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