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.

Spring 2

Spring is the months from March to May
(At least that’s what meteorologists say
It doesn’t work for everyone
There’s also transit of the sun
Though now it seems unorthodox
To use the vernal equinox)

There are new beginnings, things start to bloom
In the corner of our living room
I’m not talking flowers as you might have thought
No, spring’s a great time of year for sport.

In Formula One it’s ‘Go, go, go’
From Australia through to Monaco

Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix
Cycling classics of one day

Can we pick the winner of the National?
By name, a pin or something rational

Attack the flags, avoid disasters
Who’ll win the jacket at golf’s Masters?

In Sheffield’s Crucible for 16 days
We’ll watch the battles on green baize

Cricket returns, dig out your whites
Play limited overs under lights

May brings the final of the FA Cup
And the end of the leagues, who’s down? Who’s up?

But this year to see these athletes
We have to tune in to repeats
All we can do is persevere
And hope to have a spring next year.

Spring

I exert force in proportion to extension
I can be constant, torsion or compression

Cantilever, coil, flat or machined
I’m in jewellery clasps and in trampolines

Serpentine or garter, volute or leaf
(That’s enough types of spring, good grief!)

I’m in your watches, I’m in your locks
I’m in your car, I absorb your shocks

I make pens work when you give them a click
Without me there’s no pogo stick

I’m in your sofas and in your chairs
I’m a slinky going downstairs

Well, that’s my spring poem but I fear
I might have got the wrong idea

Four 'Guess the Musicals' haiku

1.

Great and Powerful
Or just a frightened old man
Behind a curtain

--
2.

A wager is struck
Flower girl becomes Duchess
Becomes unhappy

--
3.

Love in the gold rush
Two husbands, one too many
Time to go wan’drin

--
4.

A 1950s
Romeo and Juliet
In New York City

Cooking the Books

Having thought, it seems to me
That books are like a recipe
You take some words, mix them about
And then a story might fall out.

I’ve stirred up some letters, added some spaces
Put punctuation in approximate places
It’s been in the oven as if it were cake
Now is the time to see if it’s half-baked…

Food is best shared, so when we are able
We’ll ask some of our friends to sit at our table.

A cat in a hat,
A fox in his socks
And the Lorax will be invited
Plus Horton,
A Who
And Things One and Two
(If they don’t get over-excited.)

Our storybook dish will start with some fish
Shall we have
One or two? 
Will they be
Red or blue?
I’m going to leave that up to you.

(If it needs seasoning take a pinch
Of something cheeky called The Grinch.)

Our main course will be eggs and ham
And if you’re really keen
The favourite kind of eggs and ham
Is when they’re purest green.

Serve with a glass of Oobleck juice
And enjoy your taste of Dr Seuss.

On the Beach

I start my walk along the beach
The water’s edge just out of reach
Past sandcastles that have been made
With plastic bucket and a spade.

Ice cream is wiped from toddlers’ lips
A seagull swoops to steal some chips
Deckchairs ripple in the breeze
I see ‘kiss me quick’ hats and knobbly knees.

If you stop and wait awhile
A man’s pursued by crocodile
(He does escape if you don’t know
It’s just the Punch and Judy show).

The pier is where I turn around
Up above me is the sound
Of arcade games and fairground rides
The helter-skelter and the slides.

Anglers perch in dribs and drabs
Hoping to land fish or crabs,
A crowd of people stand agog
And watch a frisbee-catching dog.

I love the sand and how it moves
How it feels beneath my hooves
For I’m the donkey that was missed
Off this seaside cliché list.

Death of a Gladioli Waver

Last night I dreamt that Morrissey died
I wasn't sad, I hadn't cried
Now he means much less to me
Than, say, in 1993

For me, since 'Your Arsenal'
He hasn't done much good at all
(No wait, there is one thing, I'm sorry
I do enjoy 'You Are the Quarry')

The songs that live on in my head
Like 'Jeane', 'Asleep', 'The Queen is Dead',
Morrissey's best work by far,
Were co-written with Johnny Marr

Does he think his best work's in the past?
His career now going nowhere fast
It seems so strange how someone can
Become a less than charming man
And risk his musical legacy
By embracing notoriety
Knowing only controversial views
Are all that get him in the news

One delicious irony
About this dream that came to me
Morrissey wasn't alive to see
Everyone talking about Morrissey.