Have you ever heard of dancing shrimp?

I have always had two hardfast rules about eating bizarre foods.

#1:  I refuse to eat anything that is still alive because I think it is inhumane.

#2:  I refuse to eat anything simply for the sake of grossing myself or others out–it has to be a culinary dish people of some culture enjoy.

Okay–I’m doomed; I have broken rule #1.   Behold Thailand’s famous dancing shrimp.

After a visit to Wat Doi Suthep, one of the most beautiful temples in Chiang Mai, my friends and I took a three and a half hour motorbike ride down the mountain on rutted dirt roads unknown to tourists.  It was a fun ride, and although I almost wrecked three times I was laughing the whole way down.  We were exhausted at the end, so went to a nearby lake surrounded by restaurants and bars, a local Thai hangout, to eat and relax.

I was not prepared for what came next.  We had joked around about this dish earlier in the day, but the exciting ride had erased it from my mind.

The waiter placed the beautiful dishes before us along with an inconspicuous brown bowl covered with a lid.  “James, open the bowl,” my friend Kob told me with a suspicious smile.  Our earlier conversation came back to me, and I knew what was inside, so I prepared to see a wriggling mass of tiny shrimp.

But when I opened it, they were not just wriggling.  These things were hopping all over the place, and a few bailed out onto the table!  They were bigger than I expected, and they all had long shrimp antennae waving all over the place.  Having my personal taboo against eating living creatures, I had never agreed to actually eat these things.  Kob and his girlfriend, Joy, loved them, and they started shoving large spoonfuls into their mouths.

In my own country, I am very resistant to peer pressure, but when traveling I really try to open my mind to all new experiences.  Also, I had already been contemplating trying this dish before, so my defenses were weak.  But this just seemed repulsive to me.  I guess it was more the realization of my repulsion that made me break down.

I realized maybe my morals were just an excuse for avoiding an act that somehow terrified me.  I watched an episode of Bizarre Foods once where Andrew Zimmerman goes to a sushi restaurant in New York.  They serve up a live lobster before him, cut the shell from its back, and he eats the flesh from its back with a fork while it was still kicking.  “I’m going to Hell for this,” Zimmerman says to the camera.

That sort of meal still just seems insanely cruel to me, but these shrimp were dying in a (relatively) swift fashion, so I decided to overcome my stigma and give it a go.  After all, what kind of hypocrite eats meat but refuses to kill?  American rationalization at its finest…

It was really a push to toss these things in my face, and all my friends were having a great time laughing at me.  They were quite tasty–very fresh indeed–and smothered in a spicy lime-flavored paste.  The spices may have a lot to do with why they are jumping all over the place.

This was a tough one for me, and I am that guy who will eat anything.  To get the full dancing sensation in your mouth, the point is to take them by the spoonful so they are still jumping around between your grinding teeth.  Morbid, eh?  🙂  If you want to amp up your cultural experience, give it a go, but I must conclude this dish is certainly not for everyone.  Maybe I’m just too soft-hearted–I found myself rooting for the ones who escaped and got halfway across the table only to be picked up and thrown back in the pot.  🙂
Dancing shrimp–truly a different kind of experience.