Giant Vengeful Tiger Shrimp

The gastric downside of ordering crustaceans in London

Everyone laughs at British cuisine. As countless online memes depict, how could one nation colonize vast areas of several continents, have access to every possible spice, and still end up with such terrible food? Some attribute England’s horrific diet to rationing during wartime austerity. Others suggest it’s the long joyless tradition of repression, and lack of love in the family. The quality is improving. But one day in London, in the early 2000s, I was confronted by a formidable shrimp salad that took me around the block and showed me who’s the boss. A version of this story was first performed at the Edinburgh Castle Pub in San Francisco.

 

It had been a few years since I last visited London, and on this trip I wanted to bring my partner Christie, because she’s never been. I looked forward to showing her the museums and bridges and pubs and curries and the chance to hear someone talk in that charming accent, saying things like, “Ah, ya fookin’ WANK-uh!” For myself, it was also a chance to once again make the pilgrimage back to my ancestral roots, to sit in the capital of the Empire, and muse upon the rich Anglo tradition, and imagine 300 years ago, my ancestor leaving on a boat for North America to get away from all of it.

The Park International Hotel in South Kensington greets its guests with gleaming brass doors and a well-polished indifference. The “restaurant” is an empty breakfast room with tables and chairs. The “bar” advertises a happy hour, but never seems to have a bartender or patrons. Our requests for a “wake-up call” are ignored. It’s obvious all the guests booked their rooms online. Because there’s no way a human being would ever stay twice at the Park International.

And yet, the shower has pressure, and there’s plenty of hot water. And in London, that says a lot right there.

I spend our first afternoon working on a magazine story, which means I get a tour of the famous Abbey Road studio. I interview the director and a few others, and tinkle the same piano used by the Beatles to record “Lady Madonna.”

A few hours later I get back to the hotel and we begin planning our first night out in Europe’s global hub of culture, art, fashion, music, and punishing exchange rate. Except I’m starting to feel queasy. Not a cold or flu, more of that “holy shit what did I eat?” sort of feeling. I think back to my lunch. Shrimp salad. More specifically, white gloppy creamy strands of shrimp bits, dribbled across a bed of lettuce, as if Neptune himself blew his nose onto the plate. These same shrimp are now starting to churn inside my body. I’m in England. There’s no shrimp for 6,000 miles. What was I thinking?

The dreaded chills start to set in, and now comes the fever, slowing down my brain, shutting down the circuits. All I can think about is the evil white shrimp goo, with the kitchen crew no doubt exchanging glances, tossing it onto my plate with a snicker.

I climb into bed with all my clothes, and huddle up into a clammy ball. Keeping with the hotel’s theme of complete unhelpfulness, we turn up the heat in the room and discover the control switch does nothing. Christie calls down to the front desk, and after some badgering, someone finally brings up a portable heater, which looks like a flat plastic board you might change a baby’s diaper on, with an electrical cord coming out the back. We tilt the thing up against the desk, and amazingly it starts producing a few wisps of actual heat.

I tell her to go see London without me. Go down to Soho, there’s Chinatown and plenty of pubs and cafes and stores that sell legal absinthe. There’s no sense wasting a night. And who wants to hang out listening to somebody with food poisoning?

She takes off, I turn out the lights and click on the hotel TV. Apparently this is going to be the bulk of my trip to London. One channel features a trivia game show with competing university students. Tonight it’s Cambridge versus Oxford, a scholastic smackdown of inbred spawn, giving it their all for school and crest. Back in the U.S., I’m no slouch at shouting the correct answers during Jeopardy!, but these questions are impossible. 12th-century sonnets. Greek philosophy. Roman architecture. Obscure Latin phrases. If this show was on in America, nobody would score any points. They would just choose winners based on their good looks.

The live proceedings of Parliament come on next, and viewed through a fevered lens, this seems like England got it exactly right. Regional politicians berate the Prime Minister with difficult questions about taxes and welfare and something to do with raising pigs. And the Prime Minister must quickly answer them, or else everyone makes a harumphing sound and he will look like an ass. Tony Blair is a genius at this, making jokes and taking the heat like a man. I try to imagine George W. Bush in the same situation and I can’t. He would melt under the first question and hide under the table.

Three other stations are showing reruns of CSI, so I finally land on a channel of music videos. It’s nearing time for a shrimp evacuation, and I stumble to the bathroom for the moment of truth. We all have our own personal list of bad memories triggered by food poisoning. For example, any mention of the phrase “Pasta Pomodoro.” [A now-defunct chain of California restaurants.]

I can now add to my list, without hyperbole, the music and career of Gwen Stefani.

Because as I’m panting over the toilet, my peripheral vision catches a glimpse of this crass entertainment she-beast in the background, her long legs crisscrossing furiously, her pancaked and lipsticked face begging for every microsecond of camera time, her soulless affected voice belting out a combination of Betty Boop and Robert Goulet.

Gwen takes me over the edge. I lean over the porcelain lip, and fluid fires out of my stomach, my bowels, my sinuses, a giant vengeful Tiger shrimp gripping me with its legs and wringing me like a dishrag. Upon the final flush, the British plumbing system shoots up a recoil splash back into my face. It’s nice to have a bidet feature, I suppose, but I’d still rather rinse off in the sink.

I want to die. And take Gwen Stefani with me.

The next morning I walk slowly down to the corner market and buy a packet of Immodium, which is like buying condoms when you’re a teenager. You want to act nonchalant and put on the face that says, ‘Oh, it’s just for a friend.’ So I add a pack of gum. I saunter away, hiding the fact my cheeks are squeezed together, and dash around a corner and gobble the tablets.

Two nights later we end up in a Cuban bar in SoHo, talking with a local couple. The man is from Sheffield, a grim industrial town made famous by the film The Big Monty, and now works for a rich investor in London. The cliché of British politeness does not apply to this guy. When our conversation turns to the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh, he scoffs at the mention. In his eyes these people are just lower life forms, because they’re not English, are they?

Xenophobia exists in every culture. The Czechs look down on the Ukrainians. The Chinese sniff at the Malaysians. Americans make fun of the Canadians. But here in my Anglo-Motherland fantasy, I’m still a bit shocked. Because I’m also part Irish, and Welsh, and Scot. So I ask him, “Want to know where you can get some excellent shrimp salad? There’s this place up on Abbey Road…”