The food: Live Shrimp with Brown Butter Sauce
Where to find it: Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark (Spring 2011 menu)
Note: Longa Travels Productions is now filming its food & travel TV show in Spain & Portugal for the next month. Europe, it’s good to be back. To celebrate, we’re going to make some noise this #FoodFriday.
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A meal at restaurant Noma in Copenhagen rings in your ears as strongly as on your tastebuds. On the spring 2011 menu, Noma began its twelve-course dinner with live shrimp. Everything about the plate clings to your senses and memory: the creeping legs, the squirming body and, of course, the curious crunch noise you get when you bite through the live, crustacean shell.
Sound weaves itself into the entire experience of food. Singaporean fish head curry churns and gurgles with witches’-brew ferocity. Rice Crispy cereal snaps, crackles and pops you into a well-balanced breakfast.
Even before the live shrimp’s legs tickle your palate, in your subconscious the tasty buggers scream. Each one shrieks, “Don’t eat me! I love you.” You face a moral dilemma: should you eat something that still lives? Sure, you’ve gorged on vats of fried shrimp and tartar sauce at Popeyes while fantasizing about Ariel from The Little Mermaid. But something about tearing through the pulsing heart of a poor, little shrimp makes you feel dirty. Carnal. A bastard caveman.
Yet, with that comes a sick and satisfying sensation of knowing basic man originally ate like this, and if you’re gonna go caveman, then do it while eating the best live shrimp in the world1. As you dangle the twitching shrimp over your mouth for its tasty, imminent doom, you hear one last plea of mercy before… Crunch! Molars crack the shell, chewing squirts the shrimp brain and swallowing silences the once-living being into the oblivion of your gut. Soon after, you can’t help but taste the smooth umami flavor of shrimp lathered with thick, Danish brown butter sauce and moan… Ahhh!
Good food can be music to your ears.
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1 In 2011, restaurant Noma experienced its second year (of three years total, so far) as the best restaurant in the world.
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[…] provides sparse resources for a chef. In fact, the scarce Nordic resources forced Redzepi to serve live shrimp, ants and what he calls ‘shitty carrots.’ However, from great limitations comes great […]