I ran "Deviled" Blue Crab Stuffed Shrimp as a special last week. I got 25 lbs. of U-10 ("colossal") shrimp w/ their heads off, but still needed to be peeled, deveined, and butterflied. My dishwasher's allergic to shrimp (make his hands break out), so the prep was all on me.
I got about half-way through the task and I thought of how disgusting all the shrimp's shit veins and egg sacs really were. I had been discarding the nastiness in a hotel pan and there was quite a bit of it. I began to think of ways to share my disgust with others when inspiration struck..... I made some toast points, a tomato rose, gathered parsley sprigs, a lemon wedge.....and I put the raw, slimy shrimp shit on the toast points, made a nice presentation with the garnishes and sat the plate in the window, hoping a greedy server would jump the gun and try to sneak one.
The kitchen guys wandered by, saw the nicely presented dish and asked what it was. "Shrimp shit on toast, try one," was my casual reply. No takers, lots of utterly disgusted looks. There was the usual talk of who would eat one and for how much money, but still no serious takers.
As I began to stuff the cleaned shrimp, inspiration struck once again. I went into the walk-in, got a couple of shallots, and juleinned them into 2 inch strips. I lightly sauteed them in butter and added a little balsamic vinegar for color. I made some more toast points and very discreetly put them on a couple of the toast points. I took one of the shrimp shit toasts from the plate and threw it in the garbage.
I then walked down to the other line where everyone was working. "Y' know you guys are a bunch of pussies," I said w/ machismo as I shoved the whole piece of toast into my mouth and chewed it up. The looks of total mortification were absolutely PRICELESS! I put my headphones back on and walked back to my station. What they were saying I don't know, but they think I'm half-crazy anyway. I brought the platter back down to them (with the one missing piece to sell the fact that I'd eaten it) and asked if anyone would like to try one. After all, they "Weren't half bad once you got past the sliminess." I thought my boy Paul was going to HURL!
After a few minutes I couldn't resist, I took another one of the shrimp shit toasts off, threw it away, and walked back down to them w/ the platter in one hand and my shallot toast in the other. "You know, I'm actually starting to like this," I said as I popped the toast into my mouth. I really think I was causing them serious mental distress as they begged me to stop.
I Let them think about it for a few minutes and then asked if anyone would like to try my special balsamic shallot toast that I'd really been eating. I thought Paul was going to hit me when I told him, that's how good of a prank it was!