Morecambe Bay Brown Shrimps

[Morning Glory]

Potted shrimps - not to be confused with the American 'shrimp' which in the UK are known as prawns. These are a different species - tiny, fiddly to shell and very delicious. In France they are known as crevettes gris. Morecambe Bay in Lancashire is particularly known for brown shrimps and they are traditionally made into potted shrimps. They are also fished in The Wash in North Norfolk. Potted shrimps are made by briefly boiling the shrimps, shelling them, preserving in butter and sealed with butter. The butter is traditionally flavoured with nutmeg and a combination of other 'secret' spices.

Once cooked and cooled, the shrimps are graded as size one (the biggest), two or three. Ones are the favourites, easiest to peel, but “most are smaller,” admitted Worrall phlegmatically. Some of the shrimp will be sold whole to restaurants, but most are peeled.

This was once entirely done by hand, but now there are a couple of Dutch machines to deal with the smaller ones. Even these struggle to turn out half a dozen tiny peeled shrimp a second, and seem peculiarly ineffectual. Helen, a cheerful blonde, was checking them, as three quarters of the shrimp still need hand-stripping.

Source: Morecambe Bay's potted brown shrimps

Here is the pot I dipped into earlier....

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

We do have this sort of thing here. Generally, it's something we'd call "salad shrimp", since they can be used either as a salad topper, or sort of like tuna in a tuna salad sandwich.

 

[Morning Glory]

We do have this sort of thing here. Generally, it's something we'd call "salad shrimp", since they can be used either as a salad topper, or sort of like tuna in a tuna salad sandwich.

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They aren't quite the same - those are tiny shrimp (prawns). The brown shrimp is a different but related species at least I think so! Its scientific name is crangon crangon.

Unlike the common prawn which prefers rocky ground, the brown shrimp lives in sandy and muddy ground, sometimes in estuaries and brackish water. This is because the brown shrimp buries itself under the sediment to protect itself from predators.

Brown Shrimp | Britishseafishing.co.uk

Its all very confusing...

 

[rascal]

Potted shrimps - not to be confused with the American 'shrimp' which in the UK are known as prawns. These are a different species - tiny, fiddly to shell and very delicious. In France they are known as crevettes gris. Morecambe Bay in Lancashire is particularly known for brown shrimps and they are traditionally made into potted shrimps. They are also fished in The Wash in North Norfolk. Potted shrimps are made by briefly boiling the shrimps, shelling them, preserving in butter and sealed with butter. The butter is traditionally flavoured with nutmeg and a combination of other 'secret' spices.



View attachment 34887

Source: Morecambe Bay's potted brown shrimps

Here is the pot I dipped into earlier....

View attachment 34888

I had some in Cornwall, either st Ives or Penzance, along with winkles.
They were good.

Russ

 

[zuludog]

I used to live in Kendal, which is fairly near Morecambe Bay
It is quite a dangerous place, with quicksands & mud flats, which have swallowed tractors, so you have to know what you're doing
Yes, shrimp fishing is one of the main activities, in fact the nickname for the local football team is The Shrimps
I heard this story -

Early one morning a fisherman was out fishing for shrimps when he found a body - It happens now & again - people get stuck in the mud, or bodies get washed downstream

Now he had a problem; the correct procedure would have been to secure the body, and report it. But this is Morecambe Bay, just sand & mud, and nothing firm to fix it to; and if he left it the body could be washed away by the next tide
So he put the body on his trailer and brought it back to the shore

The local bobby said that under the circumstances the fisherman had done the right thing
Then he asked the fisherman if the body was just as he found it, and he hadn't done anything silly like taking the wallet or going through the pockets

"No", said the fisherman, "it's just like it was.......mind, I got 20 pounds of shrimp off it before I called you!"