Last year, I was invited to my first shrimp harvest. A friend of mine from college has a couple brothers that decided to farm shrimp, and set up a pond on their farm to do so. Apparently it is very easy and fun for them. I just had to go see for myself.

The shrimp harvest consisted of just that - the shrimp had been harvested from the pond and were being sold to friends and family. It was nice to be out on a farm and smell the fresh air. I have to admit though, this was my first farm experience that highlighted shrimp. There was a display at the shrimp harvest showing the whole process and how they were harvested. Technically, they were fresh water prawns.

The shrimp were not prepared in any way, just sold straight out of the pond. This means that they still had a head, legs, tentacles, guts and all. They were not very pretty. I noticed some had a lump of bright orange by their tail. My friend told me the bright orange was just eggs and you could scoop them out. I immediately had a flashback to the first time I tried sushi and asked what the pretty bright orange garnish was. I was not happy then when I was told shrimp eggs, and I was not happy now when I saw them on an actual real shrimp and knew that I had eaten them in the past. They looked much better on top of a cute little piece of sushi than they did in the abdomen of a freshly dead shrimp.

I asked my friend how to prepare the shrimp for cooking. She said to just pull back on the head and it will snap off. She said I could pull off the legs if I wanted to, and then just do whatever I would with shrimp you buy at the grocery store. It sounded pretty simple, so I bought some. I pictured a Saturday afternoon of cleaning shrimp, popping off their heads, and having my husband grill them. They were a good size, and they seemed perfect for grilling. I planned to do just that the next weekend. I just did not have the time, so we ended up having to freeze them. The next weekend I thought about cooking up the shrimp, but I saw the mass of frozen heads, beady eyes, tentacles and bright orange egg masses and just could not bring myself to do it. So, the shrimp sat in a freezer for quite a long time. I suggested to my husband once that he should clean them. He laughed at me. After a while, we decided that we would never cook them and we finally just threw them out.

I feel guilty for not wanting to clean the shrimp. After all, I could have tried something new and praised my friend and her brothers for their efforts. But, in the end I could not do it. I will just have to stick to grocery store shrimp. No shrimps with heads for me.