The Best Shrimp Cocktail

Folks. FOLKS. Shrimp cocktail. The greatest shrimp cocktail in the history of the shrimp, the cocktail, and the glass it sits in. Older than France. Older than Italy. Older than time itself, some food historians say — and I've talked to food historians, smart people, the smartest, they have whole books about the shrimp — and not one of them has ever served a finer plate than what we're about to put together. Hand on heart.

Most shrimp cocktail in this country is SAD. You sit down at a steakhouse, they bring you a tragic little goblet with five rubbery gray shrimp hanging off the rim like they're trying to escape — and honestly, can you blame them? — paired with a thimble of ketchup carrying ONE molecule of horseradish. That is not shrimp cocktail. That is an INSULT. That is wet sadness in a wine glass. People come up to me and say, 'Bigly, I paid twenty-four dollars for that and I cried,' and I tell them, sir, of course you cried, that is the appropriate response, the system has failed you.

My grandmother made a version of this for every holiday. Tough woman, took no notes, measured nothing, ran her kitchen like a battleship. She would scream at the television any time a cooking show host pulled a shrimp out of the pot a second too late. She lived to ninety-six. Coincidence? PROBABLY not. Her shrimp had SNAP. Her shrimp curled into a perfect C — never the J, the J is a cry for help from the shrimp itself — and her sauce would clear your sinuses, your conscience, and possibly the back taxes you've been ignoring. We are honoring her work today. It is what it is.

Cold shrimp. Hot sauce. That's the contract. That's the deal. Serve this at a party and people lose their minds. They forget the cheese plate entirely — and the cheese plate is usually a disappointment anyway, somebody grabbed it from a gas station, you can tell, don't pretend you can't — they crowd the platter like seagulls, in the most flattering possible way, and you stand there calm, in control, knowing you pulled it off in fifteen minutes. FIFTEEN. That's the magic. Save me a piece.