Prawn cocktail, also known as shrimp cocktail, is a

seafood Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs (e.g. bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters and mussels, and cephalopods such as octopus an ...

dish consisting of shelled, cooked

prawn Prawn is a common name for small aquatic crustaceans with an exoskeleton and ten legs (which is a member of the order decapoda), some of which can be eaten. The term "prawn"Mortenson, Philip B (2010''This is not a weasel: a close look at nature ...

s in a

Marie Rose sauce Marie Rose sauce (known in some areas as cocktail sauce or seafood sauce) is a British condiment often made from a blend of tomatoes, mayonnaise, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and black pepper. A simpler version can be made by merely mixin ...

cocktail sauce Cocktail sauce, also known as seafood sauce, is one of several types of cold or room temperature sauces often served as part of a dish referred to as a seafood cocktail or as a condiment with other seafoods. The sauce, and the dish for which it i ...

, served in a glass. It was the most popular hors d'œuvre in Great Britain, as well as in the United States, from the 1960s to the late 1980s. According to the English food writer

Nigel Slater Nigel Slater (born 9 April 1956) is an English food writer, journalist and broadcaster. He has written a column for ''The Observer Magazine'' for over a decade and is the principal writer for the ''Observer Food Monthly'' supplement. Prior to ...

, the prawn cocktail "has spent most of (its life) see-sawing from the height of fashion to the laughably passé" and is now often served with a degree of irony. The cocktail sauce is essentially

ketchup Ketchup or catsup is a table condiment with a sweet and tangy flavor. The unmodified term ("ketchup") now typically refers to tomato ketchup, although early recipes used egg whites, mushrooms, oysters, grapes, mussels, or walnuts, among other ...

plus

mayonnaise Mayonnaise (; ), colloquially referred to as "mayo" , is a thick, cold, and creamy sauce or dressing commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, composed salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various other sauces, such as tartar ...

in Commonwealth countries, or ketchup and

horseradish Horseradish (''Armoracia rusticana'', syn. ''Cochlearia armoracia'') is a perennial plant of the family Brassicaceae (which also includes mustard, wasabi, broccoli, cabbage, and radish). It is a root vegetable, cultivated and used worldwide ...

in the United States. Recipes may add Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, vinegar, cayenne pepper or lemon juice.

History and origins

American-style Shrimp Cocktail, September 2014

A dish of cooked seafood with a piquant sauce of some kind is of ancient origin and many varieties exist. Oyster or shrimp dishes of this kind were popular in the United States in the late nineteenth century and some sources link the serving of the dish in cocktail glasses to the ban on alcoholic drinks during the 1920s

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

era in the United States. A version of the shrimp cocktail was popularized in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

casinos in the late 1950s (beginning with the Golden Gate Casino on

Fremont Street Fremont Street is a street in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada that is the second most famous street in the Las Vegas Valley – and Nevada – besides the Las Vegas Strip. Named in honor of explorer and politician John C. Frémont and located in the h ...

; they sold as many as 2,000 shrimp cocktails daily, at inexpensive prices, no more than 99 cents), and is considered somewhat synonymous with the gambling and entertainment mecca. In the United Kingdom, the invention of the prawn cocktail is often credited to British television chef

Fanny Cradock Phyllis Nan Sortain Pechey (26 February 1909 – 27 December 1994), better known as Fanny Cradock, was an English restaurant critic, television chef and writer. She frequently appeared on television, at cookery demonstrations and in print with h ...

in the 1960s; however, it is more likely that Cradock popularised her version of an established dish that was not well known until then in Britain. In their 1997 book ''The Prawn Cocktail Years'',

Simon Hopkinson Simon Charles Hopkinson (born 5 June 1954) is an English food writer, critic and former chef. He published his first cookbook, ''Roast Chicken and Other Stories'', in 1994. Early life Hopkinson was born in Greenmount, Bury, in 1954, the son of ...

and

Lindsey Bareham Lindsey Bareham is a British food writer. She began her career by editing the restaurant section of ''Time Out'' magazine. For eight years, she wrote a daily recipe for the ''Evening Standard'', and she currently writes for ''The Times''. Publ ...

note that the prawn cocktail has a "direct lineage to

Escoffier Georges Auguste Escoffier (; 28 October 1846 – 12 February 1935) was a French chef, restaurateur and culinary writer who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods. Much of Escoffier's technique was based on that of Marie-Antoi ...

In Britain

Nigel Slater says "it is all in the sauce", and that "the true sauce is principally mayonnaise, tomato ketchup and a couple of shakes of

Tabasco Tabasco (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco), is one of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa. It is located in ...

." The chef

Heston Blumenthal Heston Marc Blumenthal (; born 27 May 1966) is a British celebrity chef, TV personality and food writer. Blumenthal is regarded as a pioneer of multi-sensory cooking, food pairing and flavour encapsulation. He came to public attention with u ...

states that prawn cocktail is his "secret vice": "When I get home late after working in

The Fat Duck The Fat Duck is a fine dining restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, England. It is run by celebrity chef proprietor Heston Blumenthal. Housed in a 16th-century building that had previously been the site of the Bell pub, the Fat Duck opened on 16 Aug ...

there's nothing I like better than to raid the fridge for prawn cocktail." Blumenthal notes that it is best to use homemade mayonnaise, and recommends adding chopped

basil Basil (, ; ''Ocimum basilicum'' , also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is a tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide. In Western cuisine, the generic term "basil" refers to the variety also kno ...

and

tarragon Tarragon (''Artemisia dracunculus''), also known as estragon, is a species of perennial herb in the family Asteraceae. It is widespread in the wild across much of Eurasia and North America and is cultivated for culinary and medicinal purposes. ...

. The television chef and writer

Delia Smith Delia Ann Smith (born 18 June 1941) is an English cook and television presenter, known for teaching basic cookery skills in a no-nonsense style. One of the best known celebrity chefs in British popular culture, Smith has influenced viewers t ...

states that the best version is with self-cooked prawns, and that in the 1960s it was "something simple but really luscious, yet over the years it has suffered from some very poor adaptations, not least watery prawns and inferior sauces." As Hopkinson and Bareham note in ''The Prawn Cocktail Years'', what was once considered to be the "

Great British Meal Prawn cocktail, steak garni with chips, and Black Forest gâteau was the most popular dinner menu in British restaurants in the 1980s, according to contemporary surveys by trade magazine ''Caterer and Hotelkeeper''. It was associated with ...

" consisted of prawn cocktail, followed by steak garni with chips and

Black Forest gateau Black Forest gâteau or Black Forest cake (American English) is a chocolate sponge cake with a rich cherry filling based on the German dessert (), literally "Black Forest Cherry-torte". Typically, Black Forest gateau consists of several laye ...

for dessert; they comment that "cooked as it should be, this much-derided and often ridiculed dinner is still something very special indeed."

The "prawn cocktail offensive"

Before the 1992 British general election, the Labour Party campaigned to win the support of business and financial leaders by persuading them that they would not interfere with the market economy. The campaign was lampooned as the "Prawn Cocktail Offensive".

Spin-off products

The ubiquity of the prawn cocktail has led to such products as prawn cocktail flavour

crisps A potato chip (North American English; often just chip) or crisp (British and Irish English) is a thin slice of potato that has been either deep fried, baked, or air fried until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or app ...

, which are still one of the most popular varieties of this snack food in the United Kingdom. Prawn cocktail flavour crisps were the second most popular in the UK in 2004, with a 16% market share.

Variations

Clams, oysters, squid (as a squid cocktail), or other seafood can be substituted for shrimp. Various preparations use ingredients such as fish and octopus. Seafood cocktails often include lime juice and a tomato based sauce and are sometimes served with lemon. In the US, they are regulated by the

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...

which requires the proportions by weight to be stated when the dish is sold in a prepared form.

References

External links

* {{seafood Shrimp dishes Appetizers 1960s in the United Kingdom 1970s in the United Kingdom British cuisine Oyster dishes Clam dishes American seafood dishes