I Find No Solace In Comfort Food

True comfort food, the shrimp boil, recipe from a friend who is pictured dumping the damn shimps. This post is inspired by Thanksgiving and what some call comfort food. To me deep fried Turkey is not traditional but more accepted than a damn shimp boil? The world makes no sense but at least I understand this to be true.

Recipe from a good friend of mine in Alabama...Color illustrations by JW.
Imperative to read recipe 1st and have everything ready beforehand. The trick is more technique than ingredients. Especially since the cook is often just as drunk as the peasants by the time the water first comes to a boil.

All these are approximate:
- large pot 1/2 to no more than 2/3 full of rapidly boiling water, preferably with strainer basket (Sam's Club sells the same stainless steel rig we used last summer in AL for about $70 bucks including propane burner stand, a great deal - and worth it even for only 1 boil)
- Powdered type cajun crab/shrimp boil, e.g. Zatarain's etc., whatever is available, use according to package directions - eyeball it; it usually comes in a plastic bag ( DO NOT USE THE CORNMEAL-BASED FISH FRY MIX - THE PACKAGES LOOKS VERY SIMILAR )
- 1-2 sliced lemons
- 1/4 lb. smoked sausage/person, cut into 2-3 in. lengths
- 1 or 2 small to medium red potatoes/person, whole or halved, unpeeled
- 1 or 2 small whole onions/person, unpeeled
- 1 or 2 ears of corn/person, shucked
- 1/2 lb. shrimp/person, unpeeled
- Coctail dipping sauce: a good bit of ketchup, add some mustard, horseradish, and a dash each of worchestershire, lemon juice and tabasco type sauce; adjust all to taste

Directions: to boiling water add cajun crab/shrimp boil seasoning (stand back, it will boil up on you), sliced lemons, sausage, taters, onions and corn. Return to boil, adjust heat to low boil, let cook for 30 min. Remove stuff from pot and drain. Return heat to high. Spread sausage and vegetables onto a table thickly covered wtih clean newspaper, preferably on somewhat level ground. When pot returns to a rapid boil, add shrimp. When about 1/2 or more of the shrimp float to the top, IMMEDIATELY shut off heat, remove and drain shrimp, and spread on top of the other stuff on the table. Stand back, and chug an entire beer while the peasants attack the table with their bare hands.


I am not a big fan of comfort food. This is comfort food season and I could give a rats ass. Give me your Mexican, Greek, Italian ,Thia,Chi, Jap,Mong...hell give me almost all of your huddled mass's of ethnic food, but spare me the comfort food. Comfort food lacks zing. Comfort food is fat filled, sans the reward of taste. Comfort food does not nor will it ever float my culinary boat. My kingdom for a shrimp boil this Thanksgiving! However I have learned to spice to taste and without shame. Have hot sauce will eat comfort food. Happy Holidays From a man with a poor sense of smell and taste, I lay abandoned, alone in the land of comfort food. God have mercy on my wretched soul...Kind regards JW