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Just A Bunch Of Shrimps Cookin' On A Brooklyn Sidewalk, You Judgmental Jerks
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jul 9, 2015
Modified Apr 9, 2018
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jul 9, 2015
Modified Apr 9, 2018
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In the old days, when you wanted some shrimp (or "C-fish" as Dad would call them) you'd hail the Shrimp Man down, haggle over a price, then tell him where to dump the shrimp on your property for convection cooking. Wait a few hours, maybe make a starch, and boom: shrimp dinner. Nowadays, some jerk has to come along and take a picture and put it on the Internet. Is this America?
The Brooklyn Paper ran this photo of a perfectly fine shrimp spread in Dyker Heights on 72nd Street under the headline "Stoop shrimp gross out Dyker residents." You wanna know what's really gross? Telling people how to cook the shrimp that they haggled and paid for.
“I thought, ‘Man, that’s dirty if somebody’s gonna eat that,’ ” said Vinny V., who lives nearby on 74th Street and asked that his last name not be published for personal reasons. “What if a dog comes by and pees on it?”
Good one, Vinny V. Everyone knows that if you pee on the shrimp, you don't get to have any shrimp. That's like, shrimp dinner rule number one.
Another neighbor speculated that sun-drying might be a traditional rural cooking method that only appears gross on city sidewalks. “A lot of these people are right from the countryside, and that’s just what they do there,” said Anthony Ceretti.
Countryside? This isn't a painting of wheat fields that you hang up in a museum, this is a shrimp spread in the here and now. Get your head out of your ass and the cocktail sauce out of the fridge.
Neighbors logged a complaint on June 13 for a “condition attracting rodents” at the location, according to 311 data. Health department inspectors are due to investigate by July 13, city data shows. But the shrimp are already long gone.
Do you see any rodents in the above photo? I didn't think so. Just delicious shrimp that look just about done.
Tagged
but yeah sure let's eat a combination of a donut and a croissant
c-fish
dyker heights
shrimp
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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