Went to Unimart, saw a bag of what looked like cooked shrimp, very pink in color, tightly curled, asked the employee if the shrimp was cooked, she said “si” as if it was obvio. Went home to dethaw and add to my homemade sushi when I began to overthink.
There was no mention on either side of the label that the shrimp was cru or cocido. I thought shrimp turned pink after they were cooked. Did a google and some shrimp are raw and pink. These seem to be too firm and curled to be raw.
How can a company get away with not telling the customer if the shrimp is cooked or not? I often feel I am in a parallel universe of tacitly accepted incompetence.
Do any of you know if this shrimp is cooked or raw?
There doesn’t appear to be a specific requirement to label seafood as raw or cooked, though the labeling notes suggest that implicitly, albeit very indirectly. You would probably have difficulty applying this regulation to a perceived requirement for cooked/raw labeling.
There may be an inconvenient (this is Chile, po) way to check on ingredients and other characteristics of product sold at Unimarc, through their website. But then we see these items listed as both cocido and crudo… for the same item. WTF?
Thank you Findes. Your research abilities are exemplary.
Research told me (but who knows what’s really true these days?) that shrimp from the Caribbean near Florida are sometimes pink when raw. I doubted Chile would pay importation costs for the pink Caribbean shrimp. Oh, yes, the shrimp with the vague packaging info was from Super 8. Unimarc has slightly better quality and corresponding prices.
I was hungry, took a chance and ate them. Nothing remarkable happened but if I want to indulge in overthinking, my time on earth has been greatly diminished by these tiny frozen dead marine life forms. Which appeals to the Russian/Irish DNA coursing through my body. Tragedy and melancholy being comfortable, familar states for me, perfectly balanced with rare moments of joy.
In Chile, you must be aware of the origin. Most of what we called decent sized shrimp sold here is from China or SE Asia (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc.). I do not buy those. The best choice for decent sized shrimp at a Chile supermarket is shrimp from Ecuador as shown in the above post. Chile shrimp are tiny but tasty (more taste than the imported larger ones) if you can find it.
Good point. Though not an absolute indicator, legitimate origin markings can indeed be useful for predicting the quality of the product. Shrimp from Ecuador seem to be regarded as the preferred product and that is what I usually get. I tried some large Argentine shrimp and found them bland and unacceptable.
