A Saucy History Of Shrimp Cocktails
November 12, 1987|By Marian Burros, New York Times
NEW YORK — Until I was 12 years old I thought that shrimpcocktail was one word. I didn't realize shrimp came without the ketchup-based sauce or the iceberg lettuce with oyster crackers and, for the daring, a bottle of hot pepper sauce on the side.
A shrimp cocktail before dinner was the ultimate extravagance, and if it was followed by a steak or a lobster with drawn butter it meant that the meal was a special occasion. James Beard, in American Cookery (Little Brown, 1972), acknowledged its popularity, writing, ''There is no first course as popular as a cocktail of shrimp with a large serving of cocktail sauce.''