What is your least favorite food? Maybe the smell makes you gag or the texture is too much. Perhaps the flavor is unpleasant--or maybe you can’t stand the sensation that shoots through your teeth when you take a bite. But what is at the root of your reaction? “Unappetizing: The truth behind the foods we hate” is a series of personal essays that explores what is at the core of the foods that make our stomachs turn. Maybe they’re tied to a memory or a circumstance. Maybe they’ve overstayed their welcome. Or maybe, it’s the food that doesn’t like us. From heart breaking to hilarious, “Unappetizing: The truths behind the foods we hate” covers the full spectrum of why we steer away from the dishes we detest.
The smell of garlic shrimp wafted over the North Shore of Hawaii and I should have known that it would be the end for me.
It was 2004, and I was 7 years old on a family vacation. My parents and I were excited to eat grilled garlic shrimp from a renowned food truck whose name I don’t remember, but was probably featured on a cooking show my mom watched. We sat at a picnic table with our paper plate filled with fresh grilled garlic shrimp, but I suddenly didn’t feel hungry anymore. I took a few bites from my food and just wanted to lie down.
We came thousands of miles from LA to Hawaii for some of the best shrimp in the world, and for some reason all I could think about was my bottom lip feeling itchy. I was too scared to admit that I might have had an allergic reaction.
Since then, I successfully snuck shrimp into my diet until I turned 21. I was in undergrad and I had brought home leftover garlic shrimp that my dad had barbecued over the weekend. I ate my lunch a few hours before playing a game of rec basketball at the gym. When I came back home, I noticed I was a little more tired than usual. As I was about to hop in the shower, I realized that parts of my arms had hives breaking out. It may have been a delayed reaction but I had only the shrimp to blame. I’ve been avoiding it ever since.
Since that last garlic shrimp meal in 2018, I’ve come a long way and I’m actually a seafood enthusiast. I’ve tried everything from mussels and crawfish to crab legs and geoduck, but there’s still nothing that can quite replace shrimp.
My body hates shrimp no matter how much my mind begs and pleads.
I hate that I can’t eat them for the protein. I hate that I can’t pick them off the side of a cocktail glass with my pinky up. I hate that I can’t eat them in tacos. I hate that I never had a chance to try them, shaken and stirred, in a Boiling Crab bag..
I hate how this summer they looked so good arranged in a plastic tray from Costco. I hate that I can’t eat them in chip form from Seafood City like I used to do.
I’m under siege by my own body. This time by the raging immunoglobulin antibodies that spew through my system when the clock strikes midnight and the shrimp draw near. With a shellfish allergy like the one I’ve experienced with shrimp, my immune system overreacts to these allergens. It then releases chemicals that can cause various symptoms - itchy body parts, hives, swelling, nausea, the list goes on. Take Will Smith’s character in ”Hitch” for example - exaggerated but probably not too far off from the truth.
People with shellfish allergies, the most common of the different types of allergies, make up almost 3% of the population, according to a study from 2019. When this allergy is not severe or life-threatening, it’s a pain to work around. Options here are to get tested for the severity through diagnostic tests like the allergy skin test. If that doesn’t prove severe, then it’s possible to try experimental treatments like immunotherapies, although clinical studies are still needed to determine their efficacy. That’s quite a bit of work to attain some peace of mind and feel better about dangerously taking a few bites of shrimp.
Shrimp is also the worst food to hate because of its ubiquity and great variety of dishes across all kinds of cuisines. Raw, breaded, marinated. It can serve as a main entree in ceviche, tacos, or paired with pasta. It can appear in a mix of tempura next to the sweet potato and onion. It can even be disguised in traditional Kimchi in salted and fermented form. I haven’t visited the South to try Cajun-style shrimp. I’ve loved and I’ve lost all since my allergy truly kicked in at the ripe age of 21. It’s a great metamorphic ingredient used in so many dishes - it’s a sad gastronomical tragedy to avoid it.
The other great shame is the potential for being lumped in with the shrimp naysayers. For the empathetic, when I say I can’t have shrimp, they will understand I have an allergy. But for others, I may seem like a hater or picky eater. I am not one of them.
I don’t agree with any negative publicity about shrimp. I don’t care about their dead beady little black eyes staring back at you as you pry open their shell and feel the ends of their whiskers brush against your hand. I don’t care about their hard exoskeleton with a segmented body, very muscular and cockroach-like. I don’t even mind that they need to be deveined to release them of their bowels. It happens. I try not to judge a food by its cover.
So for the shrimp enthusiasts out there, live your wildest dreams and eat all the shrimp your immune system allows you. Check on your friends who are side-eyeing those eating shrimp and inquire if their lip feels itchy. Check their arms for hives. For those of us with a shellfish sensitivity, we will watch from afar. We will yearn. We will buy vegan shrimp from the frozen aisle and carry on.