In 1996, I began visiting with my grandparents once a week for dinner. At one of our dinners, my grandfather showed an interest in what I thought of the taste of the shrimp my grandmother had fried for us that night. I thought he was bragging on Sunshine’s cooking (which was so unlike him and sweet!) but I soon came to realize he was bragging on something entirely different. “Why, they are fabulous!” I exclaimed. Then my grandfather smiled and said triumphantly, “They’re from 1985!” I was aghast and cautioned, “Paw Paw! You shouldn’t keep seafood over ten years!!!” He responded logically, “But they taste they same as the ones we caught last week. Don’t they?” He had me there, dammit. Although I knew this old seafood shouldn’t be eaten–it shouldn’t be edible–I knew as certainly that the deep freeze and my grandfather had a long lasting love affair the likes of me wasn’t going to interfere with as long as his seafood continued to taste good.

After he lulled me into agreeing with him and I continued to enjoy (but not quite as much) my fried shrimp, he stunned me further, “We have some from 1977 out back, too. The tops of the containers are dried out but I just need to hacksaw that part away and I am sure the shrimp at the bottom are good!” Yes, he said “hacksaw.” About shrimp frozen since 1977. And he was serious. Very serious. “Paw Paw!” I protested, “you simply MUST NOT eat those. Throw them away! You have plenty!” He shook his head, shrugged, and dismissed my concern. It wasn’t about the need for those shrimp to provide sustenance to him, it was about his loyal freezer’s great ability to retain food for over 20 years that really meant something to him.

At least one good thing came out of Katrina: At my uncle’s insistence, my grandfather begrudgingly threw away the 1977 shrimp (along with all the other contents of his deep freeze) after the electricity had been cut off for weeks with no estimate of when it’d get turned back on.