On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 20:31:41 -0500, Jenn Ridley
> wrote:

>Richard Wright > wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 14:32:37 GMT, "TOliver" >
>>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>"Max" wrote ...
>>>> Hi
>>>>
>>>> Does anyone know anything about the origins/history of the
>>>> prawn/shrimp cocktail dish?
>>>>
>>>> Any info gratefully received!
>>>>
>>>I suspect the lack of answers is evidence not of a lack of interest, but due
>>>to a question for which there may be no definitive answers.
>
>>>
>>Well, there is a bit more to a prawn (or shrimp) cocktail than eating
>>cold prawns just as there is a bit more to a hamburger than eating
>>hot beef.
>>
>>Mid 19th century in US? What's the source? The Oxford English
>>Dictionary does not record the phrase in the USA until 1939:
>>
>>1937 America's Cook Bk. 180. "Lobster or shrimp cocktail . . . Chill
>>thoroughly and serve in cocktail glasses."
>
>My 1937 copy of the Boston Cooking School Cookbook has shrimp cocktail
>in it (Allow 1/4 to 1/3 cup canned or cooked shelled shrimps for each
>person. Remove intestinal vein. Chill. Break in pieces and serve in
>cocktail glasses with any cocktail sauce or Mayonnaise.)
>
>
>jenn

That's a proper 'cocktail' recipe, certainly. I made a mistake when I
typed". . . in the USA until 1939". Should have been 1937, the date of
the OED citation.

No details of the recipe given, but 'shrimp cocktail' is on a
suggested menu in "Mrs. Allen on Cooking, Menus, Service" by Ida C.
Baily Allen [Doubleday:New York] 1924. This is according to:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecades.html

I looked in "A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband" by Weaver and
LeCron (1917). Would have expected to find it in this absurdly
patronising book, if recipes for shrimp cocktail were circulating at
the time of the first world war.