If there is any place able to treasure the secret of the seven seas, this, say those who know them best, is the shrimp head. And now, right now, in this narrow end of July, is when the head of a good prawn, of our excellent Mediterranean prawns, is more than ever full of titanic secrets. Of that taste of vice to which many of us give in despite having it completely forbidden. Not only because of cholesterol and all that uric acid can (that’s what getting big means), but also because of the apparently super-negative effects of cadmium, an incredibly toxic metal that is concentrated there, right on the head of the tastiest crustaceans.
José Antonio Caparrós, the Capa, an institution in Barceloneta, explains to me that now is the best time for prawns because it is when he piles them into his trawlers ( L’Ôstia i Nus ) fuller and mushy than ever. Everyone in the Ostia neighborhood knows him. He is the son of the Child. He was born at number 15 Guitert, in a quarter of a house, and he swears that at the age of eleven he was already spending the day on his legendary father’s boats. His first sound memory is the hammering of semi-diesel engines. Pum. Pum. Pum. And the first smell, that of rotten potatoes from Holland mixed with that of Argentine beef hides. “Before there were caulkers, anarchists, straperlists, pispas, navigators. People from everywhere. And today there are shirtless pakis and guiris, so very good. We all share the spirit of survival”, Capa explains to me, in addition to the flavor of the prawns.
He is horrified when in my first attack I grab the fork and knife. And he forbids me, this time categorically, to tear off the red animal’s head. He instructs me (I take it for granted that I am the most disadvantaged student in this twenty-something party he has convened at the dockers’ house on Carrer del Mar) on how to eat. You collect the legs (which you then ingest if you want, before going for the abdomen), look her directly in the eyes and pull the horn (yes! it looks like a unicorn) upwards. And that’s how you uncover, without breaking anything at all, those powerful secrets. Don’t think about cadmium. Slurp them and enjoy. Tomorrow will be another day.
