From Pond to Plate

With record-breaking heat and drought this summer, local farmers are struggling to make a living. (As they do every year.) One tiny group actually found the high temps a boon -- shrimp farmers. Shrimp? Yep, in Kentucky. The state has been working to find ways to help farmers raise a little extra cash, and it turns out fresh-water shrimp thrive in the local sweet water every bit as much as horses and bluegrass do. Prawns LOVE heat, so they have been eating constantly this summer.

Three farms near Cincinnati raise prawns, and September is harvest time. Inspired by a story last week in The Enquirer we visited the Bluegrass Shrimp farm in Ryland Heights this afternoon, in time to watch half a dozen wader-clad shrimp wranglers battle the mud--and a couple of snapping turtles--to net more lively blue-clawed prawns from the bottom of the pond, which they evidently drain this time of year. One turtle, the size of a hubcap, will wind up in the farmer's soup pot, after feeding on sweet shrimp all summer.

When we arrived at the farm in the Licking River valley, after a half-hour drive through roads we never would have found otherwise, a small crowd was gathered to watch the harvest. It's pretty low-tech -- six guys pump out the pond, then slowly drag a net across the remaining water, scooping up the prawns into big plastic baskets. Bluegrass Shrimp has three ponds, and this weekend started their 13th harvest, which will continue next weekend. They expect to net about 1,000 pounds of prawns, so they are obviously not making a living at this, but it's enough cash to help pay expenses, presumably. They had a barn with holding tanks, plus more small tanks outside a shed. And they have to pay for the baby shrimp, and the shrimp feed, which includes a corn mash left over from bourbon distilling -- a nice bit of recycling and probably part of the secret of the sweet taste of the shrimp.

After watching the harvest, the spectators descended on the holding tanks to place their orders. You bring your cooler and the folks weigh out your wriggling catch and dump it in, along with plenty of ice.

With only two of us to feed tonight, and after a colleague warned me that prawns taste like dirt, we only ordered two pounds, at $10 a pound. After cleaning, that yielded probably less than a pound, or three nice servings. But no way did it taste like dirt... the prawns were very sweet and mild, with a nice texture.

Of course, before we could cook them, we had to kill them.

Oops. Little detail.

Once again, I learned that if I actually had to do the slaughtering, I'd have to be a vegetarian. But Ed dove in after hearing my "ewww" when I realized what had to be done. It took a few critters before he discovered that when the directions say "twist off their heads," they really mean "twist off their upper bodies." Once he had the technique down, the prep went very quickly--after you understand that you're throwing away about half of each shrimp. A quick snip with kitchen scissors took the shells off, then the deveining went fast, too.

The prawns were in every stage of development -- they were all about a hand's length long, but only a few had the incredibly long bright blue fore claws. Half a dozen were loaded with eggs, and others had molted very recently and had thin, translucent shells.

Most of the other spectators had obviously tried this before, and they brought massive coolers, planning either big parties or to freeze some of the bounty.

I made our favorite shrimp dish -- scampi. The major components made it darn near a locavore's meal -- local scampi, and farmer's market garlic and tomatoes. (Of course, the spaghetti, olive oil, and Parmesan were from Italy, so we don't win any points there.) But it was the sweetest scampi I've ever made.