I bought some Texas Gulf Shrimp from Kroger’s this week, on special at $9.99 a pound. They were large and sweet and juicy, and we really enjoyed them on a bed of lettuce as a seafood salad.
However, I happen to remember shrimp priced at 59c a pound, and my dad thought that was outrageous.
I was about 11 or 12 and we were on vacation in Morehead City, NC where my Aunt Anne had a cottage on the sound. On one evening during our trip, we always went out to eat at the Sanitary Fish Market, one of the top 2 or 3 seafood places in all the Carolinas. After dinner as we were walking back to the car, I reminded Daddy that we needed some shrimp for bait the next day.
Aunt Anne had a small pier on the sound, and we fished there every day and caught pinfish, spot and hogfish, Nothing big, but as long as I was catching fish, I didn’t complain. And we always used shrimp for bait.
Daddy went inside a small fish market and told the man he needed some fishing shrimp.
“All I have is regular shrimp, and they are 59c a pound,” the man said.
I think Daddy was hoping for some shrimp that had been out in the sun or something, maybe 39c or so, but 59c a pound? No way.
Finally, after some futile haggling, we bought a pound of shrimp at 59c and headed home,
“We should be eating those shrimp at that price,” Daddy grumbled. But we did one better.
The next morning, my younger brother Pat and I caught a bunch of spot and hogfish fish with that high dollar shrimp. We cut off their heads, put them on crab lines and caught a teeming bushel of big Jimmy Crabs. We boiled them that night and gingerly picked the succulent white meat tucked away from beneath the shells.
Daddy made a Crab Au Gratin dish that I remember to this day. The best I’ve ever had, and all thanks to the 59c a pound shrimp.