This is me on a shrimp boat in southern Georgia near St. Simons Island. My family and I went trolling for shrimp on the Lady Jane, and although I personally did not, ahem, do much to bring them in, I did get to join in the eating of the freshest shrimp I’ve ever had.

The water was boiling in a pot while we trolled through the rivers of the marsh. The cap’n’s son helped reel the net in. While giving us a marine biology lesson on the horseshoe crab (a relative of the spider), he pulled the heads off of the shrimp and tossed them in a bucket.

Next thing I knew, I was peeling of the shells of the softest, most supple shrimp I had ever tasted in my life. Rather than having that chewy, mealy consistency that even flash frozen shrimp can sometimes have, these were little like butter, melting in my mouth without needing to chew – well, almost.