Shellfish

Shrimp are the backbone of Lowcountry cooking. The cries of street vendors calling “Swimpee! Raw swimpee!” fill Charleston’s novels and histories. Shrimping is such a popular pastime that long before the sweet little creek shrimp appear in the marshes the K Marts and tackle shops sell out of the five-, six-, and seven-foot cast nets that will haul them in by the thousands of pounds. Every year I hear of more and better baiting techniques. No sooner do I hear complaints of one well-known hole being shrimped out than people start pulling them in from the Battery in downtown Charleston. I have a friend who fills a pair of panty hose with a mixture of pluff mud and fish meal and comes back later to pull out a surrealistic shrimp-covered garment from the banks of the Ashley River where she’s left it.