Delicate, briny, and sweet, it’s no surprise shrimp are the most popular seafood in the United States. This classic elegant dish pairs jumbo shrimp with a cocktail sauce inspired by the tangy condiment served at the Manhattan Club in New York during the late 19th century.

Our 50 Best Shrimp Recipes Will Turn You Into a Seafood Master

The essential ways to cook the U.S.’s most popular seafood.

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This quick swordfish dinner-for-one was a favorite of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch. For more knockout weeknight dishes, get inspired by our favorite ways to grill fish.

Craving More Swordfish? Make These Magnificent Kebabs

Chef Meherwan Irani likes using swordfish for these juicy kebabs, but any firm white fish will work beautifully with the bright, herbaceous marinade.

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Real Roman spaghetti carbonara is pasta, whole eggs, pancetta or guanciale (cured pork jowl), and pecorino romano cheese—never cream. The sauce should gild, not asphyxiate, the noodles. It can be enjoyed at any hour, but the ideal time is dawn, after a night of revelry. — Mei Chin, from “Roman Art” (March 2007)

See all 150 classic recipes featured in our 150th issue »

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I mastered spaghetti alla carbonara—that addictive Italian tangle of eggs, cured pork, and pasta—when I was nine years old, in an effort to appease that most difficult of customers, my little brother, Yar. All forms of vegetation were unacceptable to his palate, which was so finicky that in any given dish it could detect a single fleck of parsley, the slightest shaving of ginger, and anything that had come within three miles of a piece of spinach. The irony that his name is the Mandarin word for sprout was not lost on my family.

Carbonara, which appears to have originated in Rome, derives its name from the Italian word for coal. Legend attributes the dish variously to charcoal makers, who presumably required a cheap and nourishing meal after a day of hard work; to the Carbonari, members of secret political societies in 19th—century Italy; or simply to the fact that the dish was once made over a charcoal fire. Present-day historians argue, however, that carbonara is a post-World War II invention, born of defeated yet still imaginative Italians compelled to satisfy American GIs with powdered eggs and bacon, those staples of army mess tents. Adherents to this theory generally hold that carbonara merely refers to the sometimes coal-speckled look of the dish, achieved by the addition of plenty of ground black pepper and the crisped pieces of meat. Traditional Roman carbonara consists of a holy trinity of whole eggs, pancetta or guanciale (cured pork jowl), and pecorino-romano cheese—never cream, an ingredient that many American all-you-can-eat-pasta chefs are wont to add. A carbonara sauce should gild, not asphyxiate, the noodle. True to the Roman way, I always remember to temper the eggs with pasta water (to keep them from stiffening up when they meet the steaming-hot pasta), and I use spaghetti whenever possible.

To make Yar’s carbonara, though, I was forced to depart slightly from orthodoxy: I gave in to my brother’s preference for capellini over spaghetti and, profaning a traditional recipe taken from Marcella Hazan’s More Classic Italian Cooking, used bacon instead of pancetta or guanciale. In deference to Yar’s ferocious appetite, I also doubled the amount.

Carbonara is a dish for all seasons, to be consumed in great quantities. It is luscious, simple, and, thanks to all the eggs and fatty pork, slightly naughty. It can be enjoyed at any hour of the day, though the ideal time is dawn, after a long night of revelry. Experience has taught me that carbonara is also a nearly foolproof way to a man’s heart—unless he happens to be watching his cholesterol. I have cooked it for many, with heated results. But on the occasions when I make spaghetti alla carbonara for myself alone, I always think of my little brother, who finally got over his distaste for the plant kingdom but still considers carbonara one of his truest passions.

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[Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the March 2007 edition of SAVEUR. Its author, Ma Thanegi is a Yangon, Myanmar-based journalist and a friend to the magazine. Though we have been unable to reach her in the weeks since protests and military violence broke out in Yangon, our thoughts are with her and her countrymen.]

I was such a mischievous kid while growing up in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), that my uncle Htin Lin predicted I would surely land in jail one day. Mother, ever quick to take the bamboo stick to my bottom, concurred. Years later, their prophecy came true, though it wasn’t until I had reached the (no less mischievous) age of 42. The reason was not murder or mayhem, as Uncle Htin Lin had imagined might be the case, but politics. Still, my relatives probably couldn’t resist rolling their eyes.

It all began in August 1988, when I started working as a personal assistant to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the nascent democracy movement, who in 1991 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Having met Ma Suu, as we called her, through my work in the Artists’ Union, an organization that made political posters, and knowing that my fluency in English might be of help, I offered my services.

From the office that she ran out of her home, I answered the phone, screened letters, took notes at meetings, and accompanied her on campaign trips. By early 1989, the political situation had become precarious, and on July 20, Ma Suu was put under house arrest and I, along with 30 other volunteer staff members, was trucked off to Insein Prison, on the outskirts of Yangon. I was to serve a three-year sentence.

After the first few days of prowling and growling like a cat in a cage, after the first few weeks of believing that I would go berserk if I were held for even another hour, after the first six months of constantly hoping to hear the words “You’re free to go”, I realized I was wasting my time and began to think about how I could benefit from the experience.

“They’ve put us in prison to make us miserable,” one prisoner told me, “but let’s not give them the satisfaction.” My fellow inmates might have cried silently in private, but I never saw tears.

The people of Myanmar are fatalistic, which is not to say we submit meekly to our fate. Rather, we retain a Buddhist sense of calm in the face of calamity and live without hatred, our heads sometimes bloodied but otherwise unbowed. Resilience is a trait much admired in this country, as is a wicked sense of humor. I found out that the combo is unbeatable for survival. Still, sudden incarceration is one hell of a calamity. How did we deal with it?

Most of all, we shared food. I was not allowed family visits but could receive a food parcel every Monday from relatives. A typical parcel might contain cakes, cookies, candies, instant coffee, instant noodles, dried prawn relish, fried Chinese sausages, dried salted fish, fried chicken, or fried beef. It delivered a cholesterol and sodium overload, but the food had to last without refrigeration. After our release, none of us could tolerate such sweet, salty treats for at least the next decade.

Those parcels brought a merciful respite from the standard prison fare. Not long after sunrise, the prison kitchens sent hot rice gruel in large tin canisters to be distributed to some political prisoners and to elderly women, nursing mothers, and the small children who had entered the prison with their mothers because there was no one to look after them on the outside.

At ten in the morning, all prisoners received rice that was rough but edible and chickpea soup with a relish of salty fish paste, black as tar. If I allowed the chickpeas to settle, the clear broth was delicious. None of us touched the relish. Dinner arrived at around five in the afternoon and consisted of rice and vegetable soup, again with that evil-looking relish. Once a week every prisoner got a chunk of boiled meat, a small fried fish, or a hard-boiled egg.

Any side dishes had to come from our own parcels. I relished the coffee and the fermented Chinese tofu more than anything else. The poorest prisoners, whose families didn’t have the means to send parcels, often earned extra food by doing other prisoners’ laundry. The poorer convicts managed to look after one another with great efficiency, working to feed those too weak or ill to eat on their own. Women who were unable to nurse their babies found no shortage of willing wet nurses, many of them mothers who missed their own children.

The numbing rountines of prison life took place amid primitive, if endurable, surroundings. (Contrary to popular belief, I witnessed no rape or torture, although punishment for breaking rules could be harsh. Torture could, however, be part of the interrogation process.) The bed I rose from each morning when reveille sounded at five was made up of a four-inch-high wood platform, a “mattress” composed of my five sarongs stacked one atop the other, a “pillow” fashioned from my own wool jacket wrapped in a towel, and a -prison-issue blanket. After the morning head count came the first of our twice-daily baths, taken by means of two shared glazed-ware jars in the courtyard. In my cell I had a pot of water for drinking and brushing my teeth.

All prisoners in Myanmar are technically sentenced to “hard labor”, and the lowest-class street criminals served their sentences fully, cleaning out other prisoners’ refuse basins. Political prisoners, however, were not required to work, so I smuggled in thread and a tatting bobbin to keep my hands occupied, making yards of lace. Oh, how I came to hate lace! My cell had a window screened with wire and wood bars. I would stand before it for hours, staring at the morning flights of paddy birds or at the stars in the velvet sky or, sometimes, at a clump of weeds growing out of a nearby wall; at dusk, the tiny leaves turned translucent in the red-gold rays of the sun. That clump was the most beautiful growing thing I’d ever seen.

At Insein I met people from segments of society I would likely never have encountered on the outside. The prostitutes tended to be either neat and courteous or scruffy and loud. Murderers usually expressed horror and shame at what they had done, for the killings were usually committed out of fury or during a robbery gone wrong. But if you’d stabbed a philandering husband, you couldn’t have been more popular among the other women prisoners. Drug dealers were almost universally detested and ostracized. Pickpockets invariably refused to teach anyone their wily tricks, though I did meet one, a friendly soul named Ma Pyu Win, who assured all us political prisoners that she would not touch our purses should we meet one day in the future on a crowded bus.

Interaction with my fellow prisoners was what got me through my toughest moments. A daily hardship for me was to wake up each morning in my nine-by-seven-foot cell and see the same old walls after having dreamt vividly during the night of living free in the world. My heart would sink, but it would be lifted just as quickly by my friends in the adjoining cells.

We shared our frustrations, jokes, songs (a good singer in prison is a blessing straight from God), and, always, stories, because no books or letters were permitted to any prisoner at that time (a rule that has since changed). Of Mice and Men left us stifling sobs, Dracula gave us the shivers, and Gone with the Wind took three days to tell. What we dreamed about the most, however, was food. We would spend the empty hours describing to one another the dishes we longed for.

“Check the duck to see if it’s tender,” I’d call out to my friend Swe in cell four. “And add a bit more water if you want.”

Or, May from cell six would say, “Myint, don’t forget to add shrimp at the last minute to the soup pot,” and Myint from cell three would reply that the curry tasted lovely and her coconut rice was almost ready. As we sipped the bland dinner soup of greens boiled to a mush we might remark, “Isn’t the salad great? Have you ever tasted such fresh lettuce?” If we concentrated hard enough we could almost taste our invisible dishes.

Soon, agonized yells would emanate from the other cells: “You’re all crazy! Please shut up! You’re making us so hungry!”

“Have some roast duck,” I would reply, undaunted.

We missed noodle dishes terribly; in Yangon good noodles could be had at every street corner or marketplace at any time of night or day. We daydreamed of mohinga, a dish from the south of Myanmar made of rice noodles in thick, pungent fish broth. We imagined the spicy noodles-so hot with pepper, galangal, and dry and fresh chiles that they are called “burn the tongue noodles”-made by the Rakhine people of the country’s western coast. We longed for the delicate ones, laced with fragrant herbs, made by the Shan of the eastern plateau, and those made with piquant fermented bamboo shoots by the Kachin of the northern mountains.

We also deeply missed fresh vegetables. We were delighted when officers decided to plant long beans on rows of bamboo stands in the prison yard. The vines were thick with blue blossoms; they attracted butterflies, which rushed frantically from one flower to another.

Many of us took our daily walk in that small patch of heaven, illicitly snapping off and eating a few of the beans before they had grown to a substantial size. I have never tasted beans so tender and sweet. As we nibbled, I would tell my friends of a wonderful recipe for a salad of long beans, leading them through it to create yet another virtual meal.

Our imaginary feasts ended every night at nine, when taps was quietly played and all talking had to cease. We would settle into our beds, lying awake as we allowed ourselves for the first time that day to think of our children, husbands, parents, lovers, and friends. Eventually we would slip into sleep, heartened by the knowledge that, come morning, we would plan our next meal.

MA THANEGI, has written six books, including An Introduction to Myanmar Cuisine (Asia Publishing House, 2004). She lives in Yangon, Myanmar.

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This recipe is based on one in Ma Thanegi’s book An Introduction to Myanmar Cuisine.

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Seventeen years after his 12-year tenure as New York City’s mayor, Edward I. Koch is only slightly less visible than he was as the city’s chief executive. These days, he seems to be everywhere: working as a partner in the international law firm of Bryan Cave, appearing at book signings, parties, and political fund-raisers, or simply standing in line at the fish counter at Citarella, a specialty foods store. Given his high profile, Koch has little difficulty getting a table at any New York City restaurant he wants to dine at, but as often as not he chooses to spend his evenings in the kitchen, cooking for himself.

When Koch left office, in 1989, he moved out of Gracie Mansion (the city’s official mayoral residence) and into a newly renovated Greenwich Village apartment with a long galley kitchen. With its standard Maytag stove and Frigidaire refrigerator, which is usually stuffed to the gills with favorites like fruit juices and Diet Coke, the kitchen is utilitarian rather than glamorous, but its wide counter and ample storage space make it eminently functional, and Koch has never felt compelled to change it. “It serves well,” he says.

Though the kitchen is separated from the bank of large windows in the living room, it is nevertheless designed to take advantage of them: it has two open entryways, one near the front door and one near the refrigerator that allows for easy communication between the kitchen and Koch’s rosewood dining table and chairs. Flanking each of these doorways are mementos from his time as mayor, including photographs of Hizzoner riding a camel during an official visit to Egypt and of his two audiences with Pope John Paul II. The kitchen itself, however, has been left almost completely unadorned; the only decorative items are a painted tile (from a visit to China in 1979) and a small blue clock next to the stove.

Koch’s cooking, like his kitchen, is practical and unpretentious. Having long ago decided to cook mostly for himself (his dinner parties are catered by Mitchel London, formerly the chef at Gracie Mansion), he has the freedom to stick entirely to the foods that he loves to make. He began cooking on his own in 1956, when he first moved to the Village after completing law school at New York University, and though he grew up eating Jewish standbys like brisket and kishka, he has never tried to replicate his mother’s dishes. “She was a terrible cook,” he says matter-of-factly. He favors simple preparations and, over the years, has developed a repertoire of basic entrees—he eschews side dishes—that he can prepare quickly under the broiler: lamb chops, rib steaks with garlic, and salmon or swordfish seasoned with just salt and pepper. “If you’re a bachelor, which I am, you have to learn on your own,” he says. “I just do it naturally.”

Those dishes have stood him in good stead, and two or three times a week, when he is not dining out, Koch can be found at home, standing at the broiler, tongs in hand. “I have a suggestion for the makers of stoves,” he says, ever quick to suggest remedies for everyday ills. “It is stupid to have the broiler on the bottom. The broiler should be at the top.”

While his meat or fish cooks, he usually pours himself a glass of sancerre or grape juice and makes an appetizer, eaten at the counter, of flatbread topped with taramosalata (a Greek spread of cured cod roe, lemon juice, and olive oil, to which he adds chopped onion) that he buys at a local supermarket. True to his bachelor ways, he dines in front of the TV in the living room, seemingly content on some evenings to watch the news instead of make it.

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Food and fine art are no strangers; consider, for instance, Cezanne’s still lifes of fruit or the Rabelaisian feasts depicted by British painter William Hogarth in his 18th-century engravings. Rarely, though, have the two come together in such an intensely personal way as in A Tale of 12 Kitchens by London-born artist and graphic designer Jake Tilson. At first glance, the tome seems like a colorful scrapbook—the type of journal that might be found in an art student’s backpack. Then, as you explore further, it reveals itself to be a more complex affair: a photo book, a memoir, and a cookbook all rolled into one vibrant package.

Cataloguing the events of his nomadic life, Tilson has chosen to reminisce by way of the kitchen, specifically those in homes he’s inhabited over the years in London, Tuscany, New York, Los Angeles, and Scotland, among other locales. The result is a free-form narrative, replete with philosophical musings, recipes, sketches, and recollections of meals past, that weaves through overlapping arrangements of photographs: appetizing shots of favorite dishes (from pancakes to roasted grouse), details of labels and food packaging (a flattened box of Thomas’ english muffins, a jar of Gold’s horseradish, a plastic tab used to crimp shut a bagged loaf of bread), and silhouetted pictures of unusual cooking implements (there’s one of a trio of spurtles, rod-shaped stirring tools from Scotland), as well as rural and urban landscapes. Through this intermingling of words and images, Tilson examines the rituals and environments with which he’s grown intimate over the years, whether it’s cooking tortellini in brodo at his family’s Tuscan farmhouse or making burritos in a hotel bathroom. The book’s structure appears chaotic, but A Tale of 12 Kitchens ultimately establishes a graceful, calculated rhythm: each page is a vivid work of art unto itself.

The recipes, many of which are facsimiles of the actual stained, handwritten originals, are an idiosyncratic bunch. In one, Tilson describes his boiling a couple of ducks in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, eventually smothering them in “a deep bank of snow to cool rapidly”. It’s the first—and likely only—recipe readers will ever have seen that calls for worcestershire sauce and snow. Other dishes are far more makeable, such as a beet and sumac salad and a Polish hunter’s stew of sauerkraut and sausages called bigos. Breezy, smart, and surprisingly unpretentious for such a personal undertaking, A Tale of 12 Kitchens is so rooted in Tilson’s family lore that he likens the publishing of it to “the selling of the family silver”. Still, I imagine that Tilson, who is 48, has plenty of memories yet to make.

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Here’s a foolproof (but little-known) way to devein a raw shrimp without removing its shell or cutting into it. Insert a toothpick between the two middle shell segments. Slide the tip of the toothpick just underneath the vein (which is actually the shrimp’s digestive tube) and lift slowly. Unless it’s broken, the entire vein will emerge in a single piece. Guaranteed.

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This dessert—named after a seventh-century bishop who became the patron saint of bakers—is an adaptation of one made at Mrs. London’s.

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Like veal parmesan, this dish—redolent of garlic and white wine—is a purely Italian-American creation. Scampi is actually the plural form of the Italian word for a type of shrimp found in the Gulf of Venice.

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