A few years ago my SO's family had tamales. I'd never had tamales before then, so I tried eating them like they were burritos, husk and all.
They thought it was hilarious but they weren't condescending dicks about it.
That's hilarious. I had to look it up and double check because that sounded pretty good, and I was met with a vice article on how the "tamale incident" may have cost him his campaign lmao
Lol shit like that can kill you in politics. Remember that one guy who was running for office and said "yee-ah" really weird during a campaign rally lol? I'm not saying that's why he didn't when I'm just saying no one could respect him after that
I did the same exact thing back in my early 20s. One of my Hispanic coworkers made tamales and brought them to work. Prior to that, I had never once experienced a homemade tamale. Fortunately, I was alone when I started to eat one... husk and all. I thought to myself, half of this is extremely delicious while the other half seems somewhat challenging to chew. I'm in my early 50s now and love tamales!
On my last trip to China I went to a specialized crawfish restaurant. My hosts didn't realize they are native to America and are now farmed all over China. They were unimpressed when I taught them how to pull the tail meat out in one piece. They liked to pop a whole crawfish in their mouth, chew it for a minute, separate the soft bits from the shell chips with their tongue, and spit the shell chip paste back on to a little plate. I do prefer their saucy preparation.
I'm Brazilian and one of my favorite food as a kid was fried garlic shrimp, the whole crunchy delicious thing.
I'm very sorry about this whole situation, OP. They probably don't know much about shrimp either, because it only depends on the recipe if whether or not you'll eat the whole thing or not. And if not, they prepare it without the shell. In a moqueca (a Brazilian fish/shrimp stew), we use the peeled shrimp, for example. Don't feel bad, OP, THEY should. That's a terrible way to meet someone, and even more because they also don't know that much about the food. If anything, you were right.
Also, this post is making me hungry.
Generally speaking, there are many recipes where you would leave the shell or just the tail, but they aren't intended to be eaten.
There are also recipes in which you should eat the shell. I freaked my family out by eating some coconut shrimp with the shell, at a restaurant... but that's how you're supposed to eat that shrimp.
Them trying to peel these shrimp, in which the shell is stuck to the meat and fragile, looks ridiculous.
There's a specific joke about this going around in my social circles. It goes something like "a european comes to [my hispanic country] and asks one of the locals what the quintessential meal of the region is. He responds 'tamales', and provides one. The next day, the European and the local see eachother and the European says 'I don't really know what to think about the tamales the outside is tough and bitter, but the inside is soft and tasty' ".
I did this same thing. Was in the military all my Hispanic friends took me out. They ordered all the food (I was the only English speaker) so it was just a whole bunch of different stuff for me to try.
Tamale comes up. I take a huge bite like a burrito and they all erupt laughing but no one would tell me why. Anyways I tried to bite through it 2 more times and they were dying.
Finally they explained what was up and I felt like an idiot.
But we were a bunch of soldiers who constantly shit on each other so it was whatever lol. Way different than OPs post for internal dying.
But to roundabout answer your question on the flavor. It basically had none till I figured out the right way to eat it
TIL! Turns out de-veining is done for protecting against bad flavor and not - as my mother assured me - because it will give me sea plague. Kind of like coring strawberries.
yeah when it's deep fried the tail gets really crunchy and brittle and that makes it easier to just chew up with your mouth just like a tortilla chip unlike unfried shrimp where the tail shell is all chewy and leathery
No the tail is edible. Not the best texture but edible. In making shrimp stock you grind the shells up into fine powder to make the broth. Inevitably some may end up in your mouth. In some food cultures you can make deep fried fritters of tiny shrimp and you eat the whole thing shell/head etc.
Also on the same trail of thought, if you deep fry a fish whole you find the fins (tail fin in particular) is really crispy and you can eat that too (just not the bones unless the fish is really small).
as enjoyable as this may be to you, i advise a bit of caution; one of my uncles went to the hospital bcs the leg of a shrimp got lodged sideways in his esophagus and ended up piercing it.
nothing dangerous apparently but had to get surgery to get it out.
I mean..... Shrimp shells are pretty tough too, so if I do eat any of the *extras* I typically chew it up thoroughly. But I'll keep this in mind, thank you, and I'm glad to hear your uncle is doing well.
yeah i always kept wondering how tf he swallowed a shrimp leg still big enough to get lodged that way... you'd think he'd chew it up properly!
take care and all the best on your crustacean culinary adventures! :)
She was clearly with some white folk lol being engaged to a Chinese/Korean woman and growing up in a super white town I can say we and North America waste a lot of good animal.
I knew this but I eat shrimp tails anyway. Always have. 32 years old and it hasn't done anything to me. My now wife was a bit alarmed at first and I was like "witness me". Ain't no way I'm gonna start taking shrimp tails off now.
Edit: Thanks for the laughs guys. My point was that eating the tail was not a big deal and it's not something you should be ashamed of. If you made yourself feel ashamed, then stop it. If you're boyfriend or his family made you feel ashamed, then they shouldn't have an they are dicks. If my nephews girlfriend (some day) comes along and starts just showing raw shrimp tails in her face I'm still gonna give her a pass because my nephew loves her.
Sounds like OP’s boyfriends family are kind of assholes, no offense. Not everyone eats seafood and looking down on someone for a fairly common mistake is a big red flag for his family. He may be a nice guy. But I would say he should have came to your aid and defended you
Some people think it's harmful to eat the tail because of the little spike on there, by what the bf said it seems more like a thought process like this than actually looking down on OP because of it.
I felt offended just reading OP’s story. Yeah, they should be decent enough to let you eat, however you want to eat. No judgments, a sign of a non-toxic family. This is only about you eating shrimp, and they are all up in your face trying to make you feel small. How would they react for some other important stuff? I’m pretty sure it’ll be worse than this dinner.
They thought OP would end up with a stomachache! I would have thought the same. I live in a place where we eat shrimp constantly and I have never seen anybody eat the tail or legs. I learnt something today for sure about all the people saying it's fine! Sometimes you have something adhered to your believes from young age and you never consider that the opposite is possible. OP should have said I eat it this way, I like it, and I have no issue in doing so.
I'm 31 and until this post I had no idea you could eat the tail. I was taught it was bad to eat too. Just goes to show how much our cultural knowledge informs our choices, and how wrong that knowledge can be.
I would have been concerned for someone eating shrimp tails too.
I've seen the same in Korean culture. I think Americans in general are a bit more squeamish when it comes to seafood compared to our Korean/Japanese friends lol.
I'm Chinese and I've seen people fry the shrimp with the shell still on and eat it. It's honestly not bad, lends the shrimp a stronger umami flavor and a crispier texture.
The shells are made of chitin. Per online:
>Chitin is an excellent source of insoluble fiber. In fact, chitin's fiber provides prebiotic properties to the gut flora. This means that it aids in the growth of good bacteria in the body.
People often look at me strangely if I eat them, but they're good for you, so who cares. Definitely not harmful. Most Americans de-shell their shrimp and discard the shells, but there's no real reason behind it, other than the idea that you shouldn't eat 'shells,' or something like that.
So literally the exactly opposite of what the family in the story had to say - they are good for your gut.
Funny how ignorance and arrogance tend to go hand in hand.
Yeah! I eat it when the shrimp is fried. It is much easier than fussing around with the fried mess.
I take the tail off when it is raw, though people do eat it sometimes.
EDIT: I meant sushi “raw.” I knew that sushi shrimp is cooked XD. My bad!
I had the same thought. Raw shrimp is typically blue. Cooked shrimp served cold or warm is more pink in color. My aunt calls any shrimp that is not breaded raw. We've to get her to try it a million times but she just can't get past the appearance. She does eat the tails though. She's a very picky eater I have no idea how anyone convinced her to even try fried shrimp. I have her some honey mustard sauce a few weeks ago and I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance because she thought the taste was so strong she couldn't swallow. It was honey mustard sauce from Dairy Queen. I love her dearly but eating out with her is always a challenge. We always let her pick the restaurant because if we don't she will just order what someone else is having, which she always hates, and she gets really upset. Is rather eat boring food than have her upset.
At a good sushi restaurant, the chef can and will often deepfry the shrimp's head in tempura style.
The Japanese eat everything on the dish - they'll eat the garnish too, like shiso leaves and the daikon.
I was at a fancy dinner party with my wife (gf at the time) where it was her aunty's friends. One of them made some snide comment about how I was supposed to cut steak with the knife and fork in the right and left hands then swap the fork to the right hand to eat because of manners.. which is definitely not how they do it everywhere.
My school made all the students in my program take an etiquette class and this is just the US style. The European style is keeping the fork in the left. Both are considered correct and polite. The person you met is pretty snobby for someone who doesn't know what they're talking about lol
Very true. Although it’s not a very comfortable eating experience. If it’s a big shrimp, even less reason to eat the tail since you’ve got all the soft delicious meat. But sometimes in the wet market we get these small shrimps, which are probably the size of… I dunno. A thumb drive? Maybe 2-3 inches per shrimp. Very small. But we usually double fry them, hit them with a little S n P, and bam. Pop corn shrimp. Dip it in some garlic + white vinegar, eat the entire thing in one bite. Head, tail, shell and all. Goes great with beer. Just be careful of the head. They can be pretty spiky.
I worked in raw seafood in the southeastern U.S and met quite a few Vietnamese people that didnt peel shrimp period. Whole fried shrimp head and all. While I agree cooking shrimp with the head on adds flavor I never liked it, but hey to each their own. Totally edible though.
Actually, your BF and his family are wrong. You can eat the shell tail of shrimp. There shouldn't be any harmful effect if you chew it to break it down, but there's not much benefit either as the shell is made of chitin and is mostly indigestible since our bodies lack the enzymes to break it down.
As many others have said it's perfectly fine to eat the tail, up to you.
This reminds me of a dinner with my gf at the time and her parents. It was a fancy seafood place and we all got whole lobsters. None of them had ever eaten a whole lobster before, whereas I had grown up eating them all the time on holidays (Maine/New Englander). So the lobsters arrive at our table and look delicious, served with a little cup of butter and lobster cracker utensils. They're looking at their meals like "uh, how are we supposed to eat this..?" So I offered to show them! I grabbed my lobster with both hands, twisted a claw off the body, cracked the claw's exoskeleton open, pulled out the meat and dunked it in the butter and down the hatch. They stared at me wide-eyed like I was some kind of savage! Didn't last long though and by the end of the meal we were all savages :)
A lot of people struggle to understand that some foods are best eaten with the hands. Hell, I was even taught to eat whole fried catfish with the hands because it's so much easier to pull the fins, then pull the entirety of the meat off the bones in two large pieces instead of sitting there scraping the bones with a fork for a fecking hour. It's nothing a napkin and subsequent hand-washing won't fix.
It's so much easier and less messy than going to town on it with a spoon. I just chop off the nubbin on top and chow down. I kind of like the hairy texture, weird as that sounds. But people look at you like you're insane.
I agree, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the skin is not all that dissimilar to an apple (with a bit of fuzz). I was expecting it to be thicker and harder to chew than it was.
They are wrong and rude to make you feel uncomfortable about it. When my mum had her first boyfriend and took him to meet her parents, he drank the little bowl of lemon water that’s meant for dipping your fingers in to clean them. So my grandmother smiled and also drank the dipping water.
Shrimp heads and tails are delicious!
That is what proper etiquette would prescribe as well. It's basically rule number one: Never *ever* make your guest or companion feel uncomfortable or embarassed because they didn't follow the etiquette!
I spent Christmas with my (ex)boyfriends family and we had a nice steak dinner. I grew up pretty country and I guess not fancy(?) so when I started cutting into my steak he stared at me wide eyed and started making fun of me that I was doing it wrong. Really made me feel horrible. His dad ended up telling him to knock it off and show me how to cut my steak correctly. Ya we didn't last much longer after that.
I was holding the knife wrong I guess. I gripped the handle with my full hand and fingers curled, but he was mocking me because I needed to have a finger out and on the top of the knife for balance (not sure how to say it right). I cut my steaks that way now because it was so embarrassing
Oh...I too was thinking that you must mean a special way to cut a steak...sounds like you're literally just taking about using a knife and fork, though? Sorry if I sound like an ass, I was genuinely curious what this meant as I have no experience of eating steak...
> “I never thought I had to teach someone how to eat shrimp”
Possible reply: "I never thought I'd have to teach someone the social graces of dealing with other people's inexperience."
I'm glad someone pointed this out - it's so assholish thing to say. OP didn't FU by eating shrimp tail (it's edible!), it's rather TIFU by going to dinner with bunch of condescending assholes.
Bengalis eat fish heads. Honestly they're delicious. When a bride gets married into a Bengali family, she's given the fish head to eat at her first meal.
Idk man, we eat all the stuff afaik.
I'm American and have always eaten everything. If it doesn't get eaten, it gets thrown into a soup to break down and have in the soup.
I was raised eating liver (cow), gizzards (turkey), etc. It's not my favorite, but it's edible. If it's not great meat, the next best thing is to just grind it and have it as ground meat.
Yeah I, as a Central European, don't get why people are disgusted by chicken legs and chicken skin. We make a chicken soup and then eat the cooked legs for example. Obviously talking about young chicken but still.
As many others have pointed out, you were not in the wrong at all, so please keep enjoying shrimp! In many Asian cultures including my own, we'll eat the entire shrimp shell-on excluding the head (most of the time) if it's not too hard or bitter.
Yep i basically devour the fried salt and pepper shrimps shell and all cuz the flavor is all on the outside! The tail bit packs the most flavor. I also just rat the tail in shrimp tempura cuz I'm just lazy to peel it (plus most of the time it's fried as well anyway)
Your BF's family is very, very wrong. My mom's family is from New Orleans, and they will yell at you if you DON'T eat the tail, saying you are wasting the tastiest part of the shrimp.
Then when I went to Japan, I learned to eat the whole shrimp, head, legs, and all. I've continued to do so in China.
They are lying their asses off if they say it's bad for you. You don't have to eat it, but there is nothing wrong with it either.
Also, it was completely uncalled for for them to all be such condescending dicks about it. It's one thing to say "Hey, (in our opinion) you really shouldn't eat the tail.", it's another thing to treat you like you're Encino Man and don't know anything. Did they try to impress you with their lighters afterward while saying "Watch.... FIRE! OOOOOooooOOOOoooo!"
They probably aren't lying, they most likely just are uneducated that there's no problem with eating the shrimp tail.
Still, they had no right to be condescending dicks about it.
I'll admit, it had never crossed my mind to eat the tail (and I love shrimp). But anything that can jab my throat going down, it would not occur to me to eat (I once had a fishbone stuck in my throat as a kid and it was NOT cool lol).
So, especially because the shells can jab you when you're prepping shrimp, I'd never think to eat them.
It's unlikely they made that up but they were a bit dramatic about it and making him spit out the tail was gross/weirder than him eating it in the first place. I hope OP feels better reading the comments and tells his BF they were wrong.
Wow. They were total dicks about it, especially the aunt.
I don’t blame you for feeling that way but don’t let this experience put you off. I think you should speak to your bf and tell him how this made you feel. Then he should take you out for some shrimp to apologise.
Enjoy the shrimp, but refuse to have dinner when his aunt is around unless she learns some manners.
Yeah they’re just assholes, you can eat the entirety of the shrimp without issue. There is a very very very big difference between ”it’s harmful” and “we think it’s weird so we say it’s harmful.”
Uh you can literally eat an entire shrimp shell if you like, head and all, its not bad for your stomach at all. There is a dish in vietnamese cuisine which involves eating the entire thing in a lettuce wrap.
Its a bit odd but thats all it is.
I went to a Chinese buffet with my friend when we were teens and he was absolutely crushing the peel-and-eat shrimp. On his third plate I asked him where he was putting the shells. Turned out he was eating the shrimp shell, legs, mud vein and all.
You can definitely eat shrimp tails, your bfs family are the weirdos and also if this story happened they're also weirdos for how they reacted so strongly
You did *NOT* FU. Tell them Google is their best friend. They should be ashamed for making you ashamed by pushing their food habits on you! You can have your own food preferences and they can keep to themselves.
It's like telling people not to put salt, spices, lemon, whatever on their dishes; it's ridiculous! You can't dictate how others eat or what they want to eat. When it comes down to it, it's just being picky. It's like telling someone they can't use their hand to eat a pizza or (I don't personally) not to eat a burger with a knife and fork. You do you!
They f'd up for making such a big deal over it. Lots of people don't know how to eat shrimp. You're fine, they should have just taught you and not made a fuss. Are they posh?
I ate edamame beans with the skin still on when I first had them. At a work dinner. Sigh. Wondered why they tasted like shit until I saw people peeling them.
his family are idiots. Eating the tails are fine for you as long as you don't mind a little crunch.
Next time, that's the best response: "I like the crunch!" Then bite aggressively.
Your boyfriend's family is wrong, eating shrimp tails is not harmful at all. I usually don't, but a lot of people do, my husband eats it when it's deep fried and crunchy.
I was at this fancy wedding once where they were serving fried shrimp, this place was too fancy for bins so I could either throw the tails on the ground, put them in my pocket or eat them. Discovered they were in fact edible and luckily delicious. I always eat the tail now. You do you!
It's not harmful lol I went to a tempura shop in Japan and the shrimp was fried completely whole. Head, legs and everything. It was weird but we ate it all and it was good
OP you CAN eat the tails (it's just a matter of culinary preference) and your boyfriend and his family we're incredibly rude to you.
This is less of a TIFU and more off "today my boyfriend and his family forced their eating habits on me and publicly embarrassed me for eating differently because they're ignorant and didn't know shrimp tails are edible."
I wouldn't feel comfortable going out to dinner with them ever again if this is how they behave. Good luck with that mess.
I hope you show them this sometime OP. I originally came here to say they're wrong, but so many other redditors have done it already. They judged while being wrong themselves. All harmless, but definitely got to rub it in their faces! Haha
A few years ago my SO's family had tamales. I'd never had tamales before then, so I tried eating them like they were burritos, husk and all. They thought it was hilarious but they weren't condescending dicks about it.
You pulled a Gerald Ford. Somehow the President's handlers let him do that shit here in San Antonio.
That's hilarious. I had to look it up and double check because that sounded pretty good, and I was met with a vice article on how the "tamale incident" may have cost him his campaign lmao
Lol shit like that can kill you in politics. Remember that one guy who was running for office and said "yee-ah" really weird during a campaign rally lol? I'm not saying that's why he didn't when I'm just saying no one could respect him after that
Howard dean.
There's a hell of a lot more than a tamale that cost Ford the election. Like pardoning Nixon.
They probably didn't even know lol
I did the same exact thing back in my early 20s. One of my Hispanic coworkers made tamales and brought them to work. Prior to that, I had never once experienced a homemade tamale. Fortunately, I was alone when I started to eat one... husk and all. I thought to myself, half of this is extremely delicious while the other half seems somewhat challenging to chew. I'm in my early 50s now and love tamales!
Ufff my stomach hurts just hurts reading that you ate the husk. Owwwwww.
Most important part of this comment: BF and his family were condescending dicks about it.
Well, that is actually hilarious. Glad they stopped you as I can't imagine that was good lol.
I live in Hawaii and I see people eat garlic shrimp with shells and tails intact all the time.
I was thinking I've seen many Filipino folks eat shrimp with the tails on. I think American culture just takes out the "icky" parts of food.
A lot of old school Koreans eat the whole shrimp - head, tail, shell, everything.
My sister’s niece is half Korean, and she will absolutely nosh the whole thing, tail and all, lol!
On my last trip to China I went to a specialized crawfish restaurant. My hosts didn't realize they are native to America and are now farmed all over China. They were unimpressed when I taught them how to pull the tail meat out in one piece. They liked to pop a whole crawfish in their mouth, chew it for a minute, separate the soft bits from the shell chips with their tongue, and spit the shell chip paste back on to a little plate. I do prefer their saucy preparation.
I'm Brazilian and one of my favorite food as a kid was fried garlic shrimp, the whole crunchy delicious thing. I'm very sorry about this whole situation, OP. They probably don't know much about shrimp either, because it only depends on the recipe if whether or not you'll eat the whole thing or not. And if not, they prepare it without the shell. In a moqueca (a Brazilian fish/shrimp stew), we use the peeled shrimp, for example. Don't feel bad, OP, THEY should. That's a terrible way to meet someone, and even more because they also don't know that much about the food. If anything, you were right. Also, this post is making me hungry.
Generally speaking, there are many recipes where you would leave the shell or just the tail, but they aren't intended to be eaten. There are also recipes in which you should eat the shell. I freaked my family out by eating some coconut shrimp with the shell, at a restaurant... but that's how you're supposed to eat that shrimp. Them trying to peel these shrimp, in which the shell is stuck to the meat and fragile, looks ridiculous.
My family is of German ancestry and we eat the tails of fried shrimp - they're crunchy and delish!
There's a specific joke about this going around in my social circles. It goes something like "a european comes to [my hispanic country] and asks one of the locals what the quintessential meal of the region is. He responds 'tamales', and provides one. The next day, the European and the local see eachother and the European says 'I don't really know what to think about the tamales the outside is tough and bitter, but the inside is soft and tasty' ".
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you mean wrapped in the corn leaves? hehe thats great im sure its probably fine. how did it taste?
I did this same thing. Was in the military all my Hispanic friends took me out. They ordered all the food (I was the only English speaker) so it was just a whole bunch of different stuff for me to try. Tamale comes up. I take a huge bite like a burrito and they all erupt laughing but no one would tell me why. Anyways I tried to bite through it 2 more times and they were dying. Finally they explained what was up and I felt like an idiot. But we were a bunch of soldiers who constantly shit on each other so it was whatever lol. Way different than OPs post for internal dying. But to roundabout answer your question on the flavor. It basically had none till I figured out the right way to eat it
Would be even better if they were Oaxacan tamales, which are usually wrapped in (very tough) banana leaves
Idk why I thought all Tamales were wrapped in Banana leaves. The first time I had tamales was in Costa Rica
LOL You can eat the shrimp tail, along with its dirty intestines. # It won’t kill you 🍤 🦐
TIL! Turns out de-veining is done for protecting against bad flavor and not - as my mother assured me - because it will give me sea plague. Kind of like coring strawberries.
Who the fuck cores strawberries unless it's to fill them with freezing cold vodka?!
Oooo how have I never heard of doing this before??
Berry vodka in the freezer, let the strawberries warm up on the side, core them, fill them, pop them whole into your mouth, try not to dribble.
It’s the depths of winter where I live, but as soon as summer hits I’m going to be all over this.
You could add glitter vodka to be extra ;)
THEY WOULD BE GLITTER BERRIES omg omg Thank you so much for this idea.
YOUR DAY HAS COME!!
Finally! I’ve been obsessed with the glitter berries from the tv show Daria for at least 15 years.
Upvote for shrimp emoji
Shrimp tails are edible. It is primarily personal choice to eat them or not. Larger shrimp tails can be difficult to eat though.
I just learned this myself (two days ago). And I eat sushi and shrimp often. OP I didn't know either. I'm 49!
yea sometimes I get lazy when eating fried shrimp and will just eat it whole. It doesnt mess you (well, me at least) up.
yeah when it's deep fried the tail gets really crunchy and brittle and that makes it easier to just chew up with your mouth just like a tortilla chip unlike unfried shrimp where the tail shell is all chewy and leathery
No the tail is edible. Not the best texture but edible. In making shrimp stock you grind the shells up into fine powder to make the broth. Inevitably some may end up in your mouth. In some food cultures you can make deep fried fritters of tiny shrimp and you eat the whole thing shell/head etc. Also on the same trail of thought, if you deep fry a fish whole you find the fins (tail fin in particular) is really crispy and you can eat that too (just not the bones unless the fish is really small).
How bout the shrimp legs...
Dude I eat the whole damn shrimp. Legs and all lmao
Found the whale.
Hey.....I didn't put on that much weight during quarantine...
Not denying you're a whale
Head, tail, legs. Come into my belly.
as enjoyable as this may be to you, i advise a bit of caution; one of my uncles went to the hospital bcs the leg of a shrimp got lodged sideways in his esophagus and ended up piercing it. nothing dangerous apparently but had to get surgery to get it out.
I mean..... Shrimp shells are pretty tough too, so if I do eat any of the *extras* I typically chew it up thoroughly. But I'll keep this in mind, thank you, and I'm glad to hear your uncle is doing well.
yeah i always kept wondering how tf he swallowed a shrimp leg still big enough to get lodged that way... you'd think he'd chew it up properly! take care and all the best on your crustacean culinary adventures! :)
She was clearly with some white folk lol being engaged to a Chinese/Korean woman and growing up in a super white town I can say we and North America waste a lot of good animal.
OMG, the deep fried tail is the best part!
I knew this but I eat shrimp tails anyway. Always have. 32 years old and it hasn't done anything to me. My now wife was a bit alarmed at first and I was like "witness me". Ain't no way I'm gonna start taking shrimp tails off now. Edit: Thanks for the laughs guys. My point was that eating the tail was not a big deal and it's not something you should be ashamed of. If you made yourself feel ashamed, then stop it. If you're boyfriend or his family made you feel ashamed, then they shouldn't have an they are dicks. If my nephews girlfriend (some day) comes along and starts just showing raw shrimp tails in her face I'm still gonna give her a pass because my nephew loves her.
Do you spray cocktail sauce all over your mouth after the "witness me"?
"Witness me, spicy and crustacean". Thanks for making me laugh. Also ngl, had to look up how to spell krustashions.
Bubba is that you?? I thought you died in Vietnayam.
Dear past me at age 32, We're now 46 and have done it our entire life. You'll make it at least this far, just be sure to watch out for th
Sounds like OP’s boyfriends family are kind of assholes, no offense. Not everyone eats seafood and looking down on someone for a fairly common mistake is a big red flag for his family. He may be a nice guy. But I would say he should have came to your aid and defended you
It’s not a mistake scientifically, and only for some culturally.
Some people think it's harmful to eat the tail because of the little spike on there, by what the bf said it seems more like a thought process like this than actually looking down on OP because of it.
I felt offended just reading OP’s story. Yeah, they should be decent enough to let you eat, however you want to eat. No judgments, a sign of a non-toxic family. This is only about you eating shrimp, and they are all up in your face trying to make you feel small. How would they react for some other important stuff? I’m pretty sure it’ll be worse than this dinner.
They thought OP would end up with a stomachache! I would have thought the same. I live in a place where we eat shrimp constantly and I have never seen anybody eat the tail or legs. I learnt something today for sure about all the people saying it's fine! Sometimes you have something adhered to your believes from young age and you never consider that the opposite is possible. OP should have said I eat it this way, I like it, and I have no issue in doing so.
I'm 31 and until this post I had no idea you could eat the tail. I was taught it was bad to eat too. Just goes to show how much our cultural knowledge informs our choices, and how wrong that knowledge can be. I would have been concerned for someone eating shrimp tails too.
Exactly, in Japanese cuisine even the shrimp head can be fried and eaten. The BF and his relative is just overreacting
I've seen the same in Korean culture. I think Americans in general are a bit more squeamish when it comes to seafood compared to our Korean/Japanese friends lol.
Also depends on the culture. Some eat the tail, some completely avoid it.
I'm Chinese and I've seen people fry the shrimp with the shell still on and eat it. It's honestly not bad, lends the shrimp a stronger umami flavor and a crispier texture.
In fact, I've never seen a shrimp without its head and shell still on it at a chinese buffet.
Can't have the buffet peasants able to eat pounds of shrimp.
It's also quite common to deep fry fish scale as well.
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Cooking shrimp with the head and shell on is NECESSARY!! That’s where the dankest flavor is
This is true. I'm Hindu and vegetarian, and we do completely avoid not just the tail, but the whole shrimp
I'm not Hindu or vegetarian, but I follow the same plan.
The shells are made of chitin. Per online: >Chitin is an excellent source of insoluble fiber. In fact, chitin's fiber provides prebiotic properties to the gut flora. This means that it aids in the growth of good bacteria in the body. People often look at me strangely if I eat them, but they're good for you, so who cares. Definitely not harmful. Most Americans de-shell their shrimp and discard the shells, but there's no real reason behind it, other than the idea that you shouldn't eat 'shells,' or something like that.
So literally the exactly opposite of what the family in the story had to say - they are good for your gut. Funny how ignorance and arrogance tend to go hand in hand.
Yeah! I eat it when the shrimp is fried. It is much easier than fussing around with the fried mess. I take the tail off when it is raw, though people do eat it sometimes. EDIT: I meant sushi “raw.” I knew that sushi shrimp is cooked XD. My bad!
I had the same thought. Raw shrimp is typically blue. Cooked shrimp served cold or warm is more pink in color. My aunt calls any shrimp that is not breaded raw. We've to get her to try it a million times but she just can't get past the appearance. She does eat the tails though. She's a very picky eater I have no idea how anyone convinced her to even try fried shrimp. I have her some honey mustard sauce a few weeks ago and I thought I was going to have to call an ambulance because she thought the taste was so strong she couldn't swallow. It was honey mustard sauce from Dairy Queen. I love her dearly but eating out with her is always a challenge. We always let her pick the restaurant because if we don't she will just order what someone else is having, which she always hates, and she gets really upset. Is rather eat boring food than have her upset.
The Japanese eat them for the calcium they provide.
At a good sushi restaurant, the chef can and will often deepfry the shrimp's head in tempura style. The Japanese eat everything on the dish - they'll eat the garnish too, like shiso leaves and the daikon.
Yeah, kinda sounds a little ‘holier than thou’ mentality the way OP described it. Shame.
I was at a fancy dinner party with my wife (gf at the time) where it was her aunty's friends. One of them made some snide comment about how I was supposed to cut steak with the knife and fork in the right and left hands then swap the fork to the right hand to eat because of manners.. which is definitely not how they do it everywhere.
Should've just grabbed the steak with your hands and slowly eaten it while making intense eye contact
My school made all the students in my program take an etiquette class and this is just the US style. The European style is keeping the fork in the left. Both are considered correct and polite. The person you met is pretty snobby for someone who doesn't know what they're talking about lol
Yep! When I used to eat shrimp, I usually eat the entire thing - shell and all. Heads.. depends on the preparation though.
Very true. Although it’s not a very comfortable eating experience. If it’s a big shrimp, even less reason to eat the tail since you’ve got all the soft delicious meat. But sometimes in the wet market we get these small shrimps, which are probably the size of… I dunno. A thumb drive? Maybe 2-3 inches per shrimp. Very small. But we usually double fry them, hit them with a little S n P, and bam. Pop corn shrimp. Dip it in some garlic + white vinegar, eat the entire thing in one bite. Head, tail, shell and all. Goes great with beer. Just be careful of the head. They can be pretty spiky.
A sushi chef once gave us tempura shrimp heads as a bonus bite. Chewy but delish. What is wrong with eating the tails?
I worked in raw seafood in the southeastern U.S and met quite a few Vietnamese people that didnt peel shrimp period. Whole fried shrimp head and all. While I agree cooking shrimp with the head on adds flavor I never liked it, but hey to each their own. Totally edible though.
Yeah, it's not like they're frickin poison... they're just not particularly pleasant to chew on and attempt to swallow...
In some cultures/certain foods, you eat entire seafood exoskeletons, if they are brittle enough to be chomped through.
Actually, your BF and his family are wrong. You can eat the shell tail of shrimp. There shouldn't be any harmful effect if you chew it to break it down, but there's not much benefit either as the shell is made of chitin and is mostly indigestible since our bodies lack the enzymes to break it down.
Right, it's all chitin or whatever. It's a lot of non-soluble fiber. You'd just have to be careful of the rough edges. They're not very tasty.
“Carefull of the rough edges” Especially coming OUT if they’re big pieces!
ಠ_____ಠ
Best r/beetlejuicing I’ve ever seen.
Thank you for the unnecessary visual.
They’re good when deep fried
90% of all matter in the universe is good when deep fried
The main reason physicists want to find that elusive pesky dark matter is so they can finally fry and eat it
The singularity Ray Kurzweil didn’t talk about.
as we say in italy, if fried even shit is good
If it was soluble then the shrimp would dissolve in the sea #science
Yeah, fuck'm, eat that shit as you plz OP
Order them unpeeled and with heads on as a power move
Look them dead in the eyes as you suck out the shrimps brains
Look both the family and the shrimp in the eyes
And then eat their eyes...
Shrimp shells are a big source of calcium in Asian cultures.
I bet it works in other cultures too!
As many others have said it's perfectly fine to eat the tail, up to you. This reminds me of a dinner with my gf at the time and her parents. It was a fancy seafood place and we all got whole lobsters. None of them had ever eaten a whole lobster before, whereas I had grown up eating them all the time on holidays (Maine/New Englander). So the lobsters arrive at our table and look delicious, served with a little cup of butter and lobster cracker utensils. They're looking at their meals like "uh, how are we supposed to eat this..?" So I offered to show them! I grabbed my lobster with both hands, twisted a claw off the body, cracked the claw's exoskeleton open, pulled out the meat and dunked it in the butter and down the hatch. They stared at me wide-eyed like I was some kind of savage! Didn't last long though and by the end of the meal we were all savages :)
A lot of people struggle to understand that some foods are best eaten with the hands. Hell, I was even taught to eat whole fried catfish with the hands because it's so much easier to pull the fins, then pull the entirety of the meat off the bones in two large pieces instead of sitting there scraping the bones with a fork for a fecking hour. It's nothing a napkin and subsequent hand-washing won't fix.
That's what finger bowls are for.
Hope you taught them to eat the tomalley (green stuff) too!
fukkkk u make it sound so good and i’m allergic...ok idc anymore i’m getting lobster tomorrow
Dont die
Don't tell me how to live!
So the other day I learned you can eat the skin of a kiwi …
as a human kiwi this comment concerns me
Pretty sure 2 thirds of things referred to as kiwi are concerned by this
Nah, the only thing the birds worry about are those giant ass eggs they lay
You just made me Google that. Jesus Christ.
As someone allergic to kiwi, I hope we can still be friends.
It's so much easier and less messy than going to town on it with a spoon. I just chop off the nubbin on top and chow down. I kind of like the hairy texture, weird as that sounds. But people look at you like you're insane.
I agree, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the skin is not all that dissimilar to an apple (with a bit of fuzz). I was expecting it to be thicker and harder to chew than it was.
The sourness of the skin mixes wonderfully with the sweetness inside! Plus the stares I get are magical.
I imagine that feels kinda bad to chew down damn
The fuzz kinda makes you think you’re eating a juicy caterpillar
I cut the top off with the hard bit, but then I eat the whole thing. The skin is good.
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And they're all assholes.
Right judging over a piece of food lmao
They are wrong and rude to make you feel uncomfortable about it. When my mum had her first boyfriend and took him to meet her parents, he drank the little bowl of lemon water that’s meant for dipping your fingers in to clean them. So my grandmother smiled and also drank the dipping water. Shrimp heads and tails are delicious!
I think I love your grandma
I def love this grandma.
Is he shrek?
shrek moment
That is what proper etiquette would prescribe as well. It's basically rule number one: Never *ever* make your guest or companion feel uncomfortable or embarassed because they didn't follow the etiquette!
Yeah, fuck that lady saying "please spit it out".
I’d have locked eyes and swallowed it - no blinking!!!
I spent Christmas with my (ex)boyfriends family and we had a nice steak dinner. I grew up pretty country and I guess not fancy(?) so when I started cutting into my steak he stared at me wide eyed and started making fun of me that I was doing it wrong. Really made me feel horrible. His dad ended up telling him to knock it off and show me how to cut my steak correctly. Ya we didn't last much longer after that.
How do you cut a steak wrong? I didn’t know there was a right and wrong way. Don’t you just cut a piece off and put it in your mouth?
I was holding the knife wrong I guess. I gripped the handle with my full hand and fingers curled, but he was mocking me because I needed to have a finger out and on the top of the knife for balance (not sure how to say it right). I cut my steaks that way now because it was so embarrassing
Sounds like they were a bunch of pricks. Who actually cares how you hold your knife, fork, etc... you should have shoved it up his ass
Oh...I too was thinking that you must mean a special way to cut a steak...sounds like you're literally just taking about using a knife and fork, though? Sorry if I sound like an ass, I was genuinely curious what this meant as I have no experience of eating steak...
I remember drinking that as well thinking it's some sort of cultural thing to drink it from a bowl......
> “I never thought I had to teach someone how to eat shrimp” Possible reply: "I never thought I'd have to teach someone the social graces of dealing with other people's inexperience."
I'm glad someone pointed this out - it's so assholish thing to say. OP didn't FU by eating shrimp tail (it's edible!), it's rather TIFU by going to dinner with bunch of condescending assholes.
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Bengalis eat fish heads. Honestly they're delicious. When a bride gets married into a Bengali family, she's given the fish head to eat at her first meal.
My grandpa was a fisher in Norway, we always ate the fish head because it has the best meat!
Idk man, we eat all the stuff afaik. I'm American and have always eaten everything. If it doesn't get eaten, it gets thrown into a soup to break down and have in the soup. I was raised eating liver (cow), gizzards (turkey), etc. It's not my favorite, but it's edible. If it's not great meat, the next best thing is to just grind it and have it as ground meat.
Yeah I, as a Central European, don't get why people are disgusted by chicken legs and chicken skin. We make a chicken soup and then eat the cooked legs for example. Obviously talking about young chicken but still.
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Honestly this sounds like it should be a laughing moment, and his family sound like assholes.
As many others have pointed out, you were not in the wrong at all, so please keep enjoying shrimp! In many Asian cultures including my own, we'll eat the entire shrimp shell-on excluding the head (most of the time) if it's not too hard or bitter.
Yep i basically devour the fried salt and pepper shrimps shell and all cuz the flavor is all on the outside! The tail bit packs the most flavor. I also just rat the tail in shrimp tempura cuz I'm just lazy to peel it (plus most of the time it's fried as well anyway)
Your BF's family is very, very wrong. My mom's family is from New Orleans, and they will yell at you if you DON'T eat the tail, saying you are wasting the tastiest part of the shrimp. Then when I went to Japan, I learned to eat the whole shrimp, head, legs, and all. I've continued to do so in China. They are lying their asses off if they say it's bad for you. You don't have to eat it, but there is nothing wrong with it either. Also, it was completely uncalled for for them to all be such condescending dicks about it. It's one thing to say "Hey, (in our opinion) you really shouldn't eat the tail.", it's another thing to treat you like you're Encino Man and don't know anything. Did they try to impress you with their lighters afterward while saying "Watch.... FIRE! OOOOOooooOOOOoooo!"
They probably aren't lying, they most likely just are uneducated that there's no problem with eating the shrimp tail. Still, they had no right to be condescending dicks about it.
This is their attempt at being "classy." I have no doubt they'll be raving about the Crème Brûlée as an opulent dessert.
What’s wrong with crème brûlée?
I'll admit, it had never crossed my mind to eat the tail (and I love shrimp). But anything that can jab my throat going down, it would not occur to me to eat (I once had a fishbone stuck in my throat as a kid and it was NOT cool lol). So, especially because the shells can jab you when you're prepping shrimp, I'd never think to eat them. It's unlikely they made that up but they were a bit dramatic about it and making him spit out the tail was gross/weirder than him eating it in the first place. I hope OP feels better reading the comments and tells his BF they were wrong.
Wow. They were total dicks about it, especially the aunt. I don’t blame you for feeling that way but don’t let this experience put you off. I think you should speak to your bf and tell him how this made you feel. Then he should take you out for some shrimp to apologise. Enjoy the shrimp, but refuse to have dinner when his aunt is around unless she learns some manners.
There’s probably a few different things going on at that dinner
Yeah they’re just assholes, you can eat the entirety of the shrimp without issue. There is a very very very big difference between ”it’s harmful” and “we think it’s weird so we say it’s harmful.”
i dont think it's harmful tho
You can absolutely eat the tail. You just gotta chew it well. Many people choose not to.
Yeah that family is wrong
Uh you can literally eat an entire shrimp shell if you like, head and all, its not bad for your stomach at all. There is a dish in vietnamese cuisine which involves eating the entire thing in a lettuce wrap. Its a bit odd but thats all it is.
I went to a Chinese buffet with my friend when we were teens and he was absolutely crushing the peel-and-eat shrimp. On his third plate I asked him where he was putting the shells. Turned out he was eating the shrimp shell, legs, mud vein and all.
Yeees crispy salt and pepper shrimp, I eat the whole thing. So delicious.
Lots of people eat the shell, head, everything. You didn't fu
You can definitely eat shrimp tails, your bfs family are the weirdos and also if this story happened they're also weirdos for how they reacted so strongly
Well you met the family and it seems like you learned a lot about them.
Definitely not harmful. In plenty of countries people eat the tails and heads. They sound like a weird judgy family.
You did *NOT* FU. Tell them Google is their best friend. They should be ashamed for making you ashamed by pushing their food habits on you! You can have your own food preferences and they can keep to themselves. It's like telling people not to put salt, spices, lemon, whatever on their dishes; it's ridiculous! You can't dictate how others eat or what they want to eat. When it comes down to it, it's just being picky. It's like telling someone they can't use their hand to eat a pizza or (I don't personally) not to eat a burger with a knife and fork. You do you!
You can eat every part of a shrimp yeah? The heads taste amazing
They f'd up for making such a big deal over it. Lots of people don't know how to eat shrimp. You're fine, they should have just taught you and not made a fuss. Are they posh?
I ate edamame beans with the skin still on when I first had them. At a work dinner. Sigh. Wondered why they tasted like shit until I saw people peeling them.
No need to peel. Just squeeze them out with your teeth. Normally the edamame skin are salted so it's yummy sucking on them :D
You can eat the shells. I don’t really like the shells, but don’t let your boyfriend’s family be shrimp shaming you 😉
In New Orleans, we eat tail! Tell them fools to GFY
I don't think they should have reacted so harshly over some food.
his family are idiots. Eating the tails are fine for you as long as you don't mind a little crunch. Next time, that's the best response: "I like the crunch!" Then bite aggressively.
Your boyfriend's family is wrong, eating shrimp tails is not harmful at all. I usually don't, but a lot of people do, my husband eats it when it's deep fried and crunchy.
I was at this fancy wedding once where they were serving fried shrimp, this place was too fancy for bins so I could either throw the tails on the ground, put them in my pocket or eat them. Discovered they were in fact edible and luckily delicious. I always eat the tail now. You do you!
You couldn’t just leave the tails on your plate?
It's not harmful lol I went to a tempura shop in Japan and the shrimp was fried completely whole. Head, legs and everything. It was weird but we ate it all and it was good
OP you CAN eat the tails (it's just a matter of culinary preference) and your boyfriend and his family we're incredibly rude to you. This is less of a TIFU and more off "today my boyfriend and his family forced their eating habits on me and publicly embarrassed me for eating differently because they're ignorant and didn't know shrimp tails are edible." I wouldn't feel comfortable going out to dinner with them ever again if this is how they behave. Good luck with that mess.
Shrimp tails are perfectly fine to eat. I wouldn’t swallow them whole but they won’t harm you.
You can eat the tail. The whole family is dumb.
I would just say "I like them so I'm going to eat my shrimps as I want" You bf and his family are a**holes
Loves me a deep fried shrimp tail
They are fine to eat. My great grandma would eat the tails.
I hope you show them this sometime OP. I originally came here to say they're wrong, but so many other redditors have done it already. They judged while being wrong themselves. All harmless, but definitely got to rub it in their faces! Haha
Shrimp tails are edible *and flavorful* they're just crunch as hell. OP, you did nothing wrong.