Dancing shrimp salad

Dancing shrimp salad

Well, here’s something interesting: dancing shrimp salad, or กู้งเต้น [goong dten].  You might think that’s just a fancy name for the dish until you realize it’s literal.  Yes the shrimp are actually dancing!  How so?  Basically they are scooped right out of a fish tank where they are swimming around and plunked right into a pot.  Then they are immediately mixed with a sauce mainly consisting of chili peppers.  So yeah, they’re dancing alright.  You probably would be too if you were suffocating while having chilies smeared all over your body.  As you can see in the picture below, they are indeed trying to escape.

Anyway, I try not to think about their torture as I carefully pluck in my mouth.  They’re very small, just babies, you eat the whole thing…head, tail, antennae, everything.  Single or by the mouthful it doesn’t matter.  It is quite tasty, although it’s probably mostly the sauce. The only thing to worry about is that you are essentially eating raw seafood from who knows how dirty water.  Bon apetit!

Some escapees from the bowl - yeah, they flipped themselves out

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