The Prawn Ring

For one of the receptions at work I went to a budget frozen food store and bought a 'prawn ring'. The prawns were frozen in concentric circles around a central well of pink sludge, cunningly packaged on the 'freezer to table' brown plastic base that wasn't quite as sturdy as it needed to be to avoid slippage. I think it only cost about £3, it might even have been £2. I was wondering how the shop could sell them so cheaply, and realised, with horror, that I might have inadvertently bought battery farmed prawns. They sat in their misery on my desk, and a puddle of fishy water started to leak towards my paperwork (which you remember had been saved from doughnut disaster earlier in the week). I wondered whether their cages had been cramped, whether their living conditions had been the prawn equivalent of Abu Graib. I felt quite sorry for them, but couldn't resist tasting one (to check whether it was fully defrosted as the sludge on my desk suggested). It was disappointingly flaccid (but then 'flaccid' is a word that always conjures up disappointment). It didn't taste of much, except coldness and dampness with a salty after-note. The picture on the box it came in promised so much more, with its lurid, technicolour artwork and generous proportions. Still, I expect life promised more to the prawns than to end up as the feature item in a finger fork buffet.