Comments on: Why does prawn / shrimp sushi come with the little tail still attached to the prawn?

Question: Why does prawn / shrimp sushi come with the little tail still attached to the prawn?

UbuRoivas — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:14:35 -0800

Should-I-eat-it-filter: Why does prawn / shrimp sushi come with the little tail still attached to the prawn? Does anybody actually eat the tail? Should I?

By: pravit

pravit — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:16:33 -0800

I've always thought it was for aesthetic reasons. I occasionally eat the tail when I don't feel like spitting it out, but I would imagine most people don't. Good source of calcium.

By: illenion

illenion — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:17:52 -0800

If you're talking about the tail part of the outside shell, don't eat that. Just gently pull it off, the small part of the shrimp that's still inside will slide out.

By: branwen

branwen — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:18:06 -0800

It's purely decorative in nature. It'd be like eating a cockroach I'd imagine.

By: dawson

dawson — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:21:35 -0800

You can, of course, bite the tail off like most Americans, but HELL YES I EAT THE TAIL (and the entire ecoskeleton).

By: hooray

hooray — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:26:14 -0800

You can eat the tail. I eat it if the shrimp was fried or deep fried, but not if it was steamed.

By: dead cousin ted

dead cousin ted — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:27:10 -0800

It's for decoration.

By: lundman

lundman — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:27:56 -0800

Definitely a higher percentage of people who eat the tail/head/etc here in Asia than back home where near no-one would.

Up to you really.

By: kimdog

kimdog — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:29:46 -0800

It's nature's handle for dipping the critters into cocktail or soy sauce.

By: pompomtom

pompomtom — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:36:20 -0800

Go on, eat it. I dare ya!

(no, I don't eat them myself...)

By: olinerd

olinerd — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:38:34 -0800

Having worked in a sushi place and been the shrimp bitch for a while, I can tell you that the shrimp for ebi gets peeled all the way down the tail, so what's left is softer than normal and it is edible. Everyone I worked with in the restaurant ate it. I don't personally like it.

By: kdar

kdar — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:39:20 -0800

They eat the tail in Japan. I also eat the tail if it's fried, especially with tempura. It's kind of like eating chips.

By: Ookseer

Ookseer — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:42:02 -0800

Tail? I thought that was the handle.

By: zinfandel

zinfandel — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:42:20 -0800

It's also easier for whomever peels the shrimp to leave the tail on. I used to eat them as a kid because it annoyed my mom. No way could it be like eating a cockroach; roaches don't have tasty shrimp inside. EAT IT!

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:56:17 -0800

Righto, I'm now entering a new incarnation as a prawn tail eatin' guy!

Best answer prize would have to go to the shrimp bitch for the insider knowledge.

By: infinitywaltz

infinitywaltz — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:02:34 -0800

My girlfriend eats the tail. I sometimes eat the tail. The tail is edible.

The head is also edible, and if you order "ama ebi" in a sushi restaurant, you'll get the head deep-fried and the tail raw.

By: jmnugent

jmnugent — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:20:07 -0800

Count me in as someone who eats both the head and tail. (although now that I think about it, only on the deep fried/tempura options. Steamed?.. I probably would not eat the head/tail. I believe because when its deepfriend/tempura'd its more tasty/crunchy.. when its steamed, it still has some chewy consistency and harder to eat and sometimes cuts my gums)

By: desuetude

desuetude — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:23:34 -0800

I eat the tail if it's crunchy enough, which is every prep except steamed, pretty much. Mmm.

By: gjc

gjc — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:30:12 -0800

I eat it on smaller ones, the larger ones seem to be less palatable.

By: Mizu

Mizu — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:37:04 -0800

When fried it's just like the shell on soft shell crabs and the like. It's odd to me when my friends give me funny looks for eating shrimp shells when Americans think softshell crab is such a huge delicacy. Maybe it's because I respond to their looks with "it's like a fingernail! :D"

When shrimp is raw or steamed it's chewy, but REALLY fresh shrimp and some of the sweeter varieties have flavorful enough shells for me to enjoy it regardless of texture.

By: zardoz

zardoz — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:46:44 -0800

In Japan, the rule of thumb seems to be if the fish is small enough, eat the whole damn thing: head to tail. What "small enough" means is up for debate, and not all Japanese like the same food or have the same eating standards. So eating the tail probably isn't bad for you, at the very least.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:50:28 -0800

Righto, I'm now entering a new incarnation as a prawn tail eatin' guy!

Or you could be hardcore like my brother: remove prawn head/body, slurp out intestinal matter, consume still-exoskeletoned tail. He took something of a macabre delight in terrorising everybody else at the table when I was a lad. Crunch crunch crunch, he would go, staring directly into our souls.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 18:51:27 -0800

Funny thing was, whenever he got a tiny little piece of tobacco on his tongue, he would spit it out like it was Greek fire.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:02:35 -0800

Oh, and while you're doing that, see if your local Japanese restaurant has kani miso.

By: porpoise

porpoise — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:05:47 -0800

Uh, shrimp exoskeleton is comprised of chitin. Humans don't have the enzymes to break it down, and won't absorb any calcium from it.

I know people who claim to eat it. I'm Cantonese and will eat basically anything but I don't eat shrimp shells.

By: adipocere

adipocere — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:08:51 -0800

You certainly can eat the tail. You might eat the tail, as an experiment, to see if you like it.

However, my rule of thumb is that I'm an adult at a restaurant paying money for the experience, not a five year old staring down a plate of lima beans: therefore, I'll eat or not eat any damn portion of it I like.

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:15:40 -0800

I eat the tail, because I dislike to touch my food.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:24:51 -0800

I was actually recently introduced to eating prawn heads & legs by my Filipino housemate. Surprisingly edible, fried up in oil with lots of garlic & then drizzled over with lemon juice.

Now that I hear we can't break the stuff down in our bellies, I might pass on any further prawn head meals, though.

As for the tails, I guess I was more interested in the cultural etiquette than whether or not they're edible. The heads didn't kill me, so I figured the tails are probably safe, but I didn't want to be committing some horrible faux pas in my friendly local sushi restaurants.

As an aside, a friend works with a woman who - completely inexplicably - had gone through her entire life without anybody pointing out to her that you're expected to peel prawns before eating them. They went out for a work lunch & she was happily chowing down on the critters, exoskeleton & all, with a "why are you all staring at me like a circus freak?" look on her face.

By: terranova

terranova — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:27:19 -0800

Agreed, you can eat the tail...

Except if you have any serious digestive illnesses like Crohn's, IBS, or diverticulitis. A friend suffering from grave IBS informed her gastroenterologist that she'd gotten very ill after eating amaebi (sweet raw shrimp with fried exoskeleton). He shut his folder and asked, "are you crazy?"

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:28:01 -0800

Uh, shrimp exoskeleton is comprised of chitin

You're chitin me.

But you may want to check the Annals. Seems that research is suggesting human gastric juices contain chitinases.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:34:52 -0800

'course, you're still basically eating jagged-edged shards of a kind of free range plastic, and if you get enough of that clogged up in your personal seven meters of kani miso, then your own body's annal is going to let you know about it.

By: Ghidorah

Ghidorah — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:20:35 -0800

eww, no. Don't order kanimiso, it's a trick. Or, more acurately, it's crab brains. With the consistancy of miso paste. When crab is eaten with the in-laws, all portions of kanimiso that come with the sets ordered are passed to my father-in-law, who delightedly slurps (loudly) all the little crab memories... eww.

And I don't eat the shell, or the tail. Insert sushi in mouth, close mouth partly, pull tail bits off. The little tail bits of meat will slide right out. Place tail bits on plate, then order some amadai.

By: porpoise

porpoise — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:31:14 -0800

turgid - interesting!

From the article, human chitinase activity is from 0, to 0.2-36nmole/ml/hour. Chitin is about 200g/mol. Since my proxie's borked right now, I'm assuming the mean is the median (given the range, the median's probably much lower) that's 15nmoles/hour...

1 shrimp tail's ~ 0.1grams = 0.0005 moles = 0.5mmoles = 5,000umoles = 5,000,000nmoles so that'll take about 38 years to digest*.

I'd like to see how that study controlled for non-specific breakdown of anything.

*I'm pretty drunk, please check my numbers

Yes, deep fried shrimp bits = heat decomposed chitin = disolvable and even yummy. Most tempura doesn't get hot enough to crumple shrimp/prawn tails. Soft shelled crab; I think that the heat is enough to break it down enough so it doesn't cause intestinal distress (and soft-shelled crab is yummy).

Shrimp/prawn heads? Soooo yummy to suck out (ie., boiled whole live shrimp/prawns is a *treat*), but to swallow the solid bits? Not so much.

By: porpoise

porpoise — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:36:08 -0800

(Sorry)

Is kanimiso really crab brains? Crabs got *tiny* little brains...

The greenish stuff in crabs are either liver or ovaries. I *think* liver, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were ovaries. Anyway, they're yummy. Very very yummy. The 'brains' in a lobster's carapace... (I'm pretty sure, is a liver-like organ - greenish, lots of folds) slurlp slurp slurp yummy.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:44:04 -0800

Kani miso is basically "crab viscera", all the stuff that isn't crab meat. Biggest crab in the world still only has a brain about the size of a pea, but they still have organs, intestines, stomachs, etc.

According to The Wire, which is basically where I get all my information about America, crab guts are quite popular in Baltimore.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:54:12 -0800

Crab brains! They *so* have a date with my stomach at the earliest possible opportunity!

On preview: crab viscera, huh? Well, that'll do. A friend was telling me about eating crab ovaries, so that might be the same thing. As long as they don't taste anything like those horrifically bitter guts that the Japanese like to leave in their grilled sardines.

By: porpoise

porpoise — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:54:39 -0800

Whatever the viscera inside the crab's shell is, it's (mostly) worth eating.

Alaskan King crab? Bah. Tasteless meat.

/damnit, I want to go buy a bagful of dungeness now.
//boil to kill, eviscerate, then 'dry'-batter in flour/corn-starch/salt/pepper/chopped-fresh-chili-pepper/dissociated-dried-scallops/chopped-garlic/shredded-ginger then fry in oil on high heat. Fold in eggs scrambled in XO brandy. MmmmmMMmmmmMMMmmmmm. Messy, but that's part of the fun.

By: turgid dahlia

turgid dahlia — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:59:45 -0800

Ever had a mangrove worm? Kani miso tastes a bit like that, except crabbier and not as chewy (it's more a kind of paste) or gritty. In fact it doesn't taste much like mangrove worm at all. I just wanted you to know that I've eaten mangrove worm.

By: porpoise

porpoise — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:01:11 -0800

Crab 'ovaries' tastes super umami. Some people say bitter, most say 'proteinaceous' sweet.

Having fresh (AND in-season - now, I don't think, is it) crabs makes a significant difference.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:05:52 -0800

mangrove worm? that comment is useless without pic - oh!

to think i've spent so much time in the proximity of mangroves without ever realising that you can cut them open to find disgusting looking but tasty bush tucker! and there i was thinking that the local blackfellas only used to eat fresh sydney rock oysters from the bay.

By: themel

themel — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:40:16 -0800

porpoise: Any chance you're missing the "/ml" in your calculation? I presume that more than one milliliter of gastric acid may contribute its otherwise-bored chitinase to the digestion of the occasional shrimp tail or two...

By: TomMelee

TomMelee — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:49:06 -0800

The yellow goo inside crabs is delicious. Some people say it's fat, some say it's the hepatopancreas, but the latter wouldn't tell me why some have a lot and some have a little. I actually like to dip the crab meat into the crab "mustard" when it's there. It's awesome. (Yea, it's called crab mustard by people in the know.)