Sunday 17 May 2020

Candy Shrimps - a potted history

(Copied across from another blog I'm closing down - originally posted 18 January 2015)

The Candy Shrimp (squilla spuma) is a small sea creature that is now eaten as a confectionery item but played a bigger part in the British diet and history up until the late 19th century.

The shrimp lives mainly as every other shrimp but emits a foam as a defence mechanism when challenged by a predator. This foam is unpleasant to other marine creatures but has a delightful fruit flavour for humans. The foam dissolves in water after a few hours and the shrimp continues its life but if taken from water in its foamy state it will solidify and die.

Records show that it was first fished off the east coast of Britain in the early 1500s. Poor coastal dwellers would go to the beach at low tide and find the shrimps that had been caught out by the receding waters and left on the beach. As travel links improved so did the commercial reach of the shrimp.

The first known literary reference to candy shrimps is from the great Scottish bard Robert Burns (1759-1796) in his 'Ode to Things that Live in the Sea':
"Oooh, shrimpy.
Yur wee, pink, foamy body tastes guid to me."

(Although some scholars believe William Shakespeare's famous tragedy Macbeth is based on the battle for control of the lucrative candy shrimp market from Scotland into England in the late 1500's.*)

The industrial revolution brought the candy shrimp to the masses and the price fell dramatically as a result. Improved fishing techniques dredging the shrimp beds off of the east coast and the introduction of the railways meant that the shrimps were moving across Britain in their tons.

Author Henry Mayhew wrote about it in his seminal work on life on the margins in Victorian times 'London Labour and the London Poor'. Costermongers in the 1850s were complaining about the fall in price while it was thought that candy shrimps were making up 40% of some of the poorest Londoners' diets.

The Government's Poor Law Board passed an amendment in 1864 stating that candy shrimps were no longer to be used in the gruel served in workhouses as it was too flavoursome and not enough of a deterrent to keep people out.

The collapse of the candy shrimp price ultimately led to its decline. The fishing fleets found that it was no longer worth their while dredging for the shrimp with profit margins so small and turned their attention to supplying the new craze for fish and chips.

This sudden rarity and price increase moved the shrimp back into the dining rooms of the middle classes but the fatal blow to its popularity came in 1885. British hero General Charles Gordon had been under siege in Khartoum for several months and messages sent out of the city had simply said: 'Send reinforcements - and candy shrimps'.

The relieving party (and shrimps) arrived too late. Gordon had been killed by the army of the Mahdi two days before. Gordon was feted as a hero but the shrimps were tainted as a symbol of defeat. Tourists to Khartoum have been known to leave candy shrimps on the steps where Gordon is believed to have fallen.

That would have been the end of the story but for the 'candy shrimp wars' between Britain and Iceland in the 1970s. The television news brought pictures of fishing boats and battleships clashing in the disputed candy shrimp fishing grounds into the UK's living rooms.

During the conflict the candy shrimp and the eating of it became a symbol of British patriotism and support for our fishermen. Although the 'candy shrimp wars, were ultimately lost they reinvigorated an interest in the creature that lives into the pick and mix jars of today.

*But they are generally accepted to be mad.