Sol, I grow and know shallots and that's not it. The flesh shows striation (visible in the photo -- see lower-right portion of the top piece), but I think it's probably caused by something fibrous. The sauce obviously influenced the color of things, but the flesh seems to be creamy-colored -- again, similar to apple or pear. wildmage, by appearance alone, we kept thinking it could be a mushroom, but the texture and taste just doesn't match up with any mushroom we've ever experienced. They did use ordinary fresh white mushrooms. I thought of asian pear as a possibility by appearance, but it's definitely not it. Taste and texture is wrong. APs are more grainy, and definitely sweet, and this was neither. Whatever it was, there was plenty of it... I piled those 2 pieces together on top just to take the photo for ID purposes.

Okay, post mortem. The spanakopita was good. I ended up assembling them, then freezing, and baking them at her house, with plenty of melted butter and truffle salt sprinkled on. The filling was spinach, onion, egg, garlic, nutmeg, feta, ricotta. The main problem was that the filo shells were kind of tasteless, merely crunchy and flakey and buttery. Next time I will use an herb butter when assembling the filo triangles. But people loved them anyway. The meatballs had good flavor, but were kind of dry. They were pork, beef, lamb, spinach, couscous, onion, garlic, with a spicy bread crumb exterior. But meat today is too lean. Hence the balls weren't juicy enough. Next time I'll use the dim sum trick of incorporating some gelatinous stock. The wings were fine, that is a reliable recipe. Steam wings to render fat, then toss in oil and salt, roast until browned, then toss in melted butter with salt, garlic, cayenne. My friend also had salsa, chips, celery, blue cheese dressing. People brought beer and champagne. Her kitchen is hard to work in. Her cutting board is a 4" x 6" sheet of pebbly glass. Really. Her knives are as dull as spatulas. Ugh. I'm not sure what she normally eats. Sandwiches, maybe. This friend is a cyclist. She leads groups on 100 mile bicycle rides, routinely. We met on one of her rides. For her birthday, she hosted a breakfast at her house, then led fifteen friends on a 50 mile ride in the rain that turned out to be very hilly and tough. Just six finished the ride, and they got to her house just as I was arriving with the food. So I was finishing and plating my food with these ravenous, soaking, exhausted cyclists hovering. We had to bring the food out in shifts, so that the later arrivals, who hadn't gone in the ride, would actually have something to eat. I never did end up making the shrimp mushroom dish. Time got away from me. But I'll make it later maybe this weekend. It sounds promising. I left about 8 pm, just as things were getting going. Found a guy there who knew how to cook, put him in charge of monitoring and serving the remaining shifts of food. Good group of people, some I know pretty well from bike rides, but I wasn't really in the mood for a partay.

Aha! They are indeed Argentine! Thank-you, Provogal! I tried Google Images, and saw some that looked similar. I won't worry. They look amazingly like cooked though they're obviously not. :) Dcarch, these are easier to peel than that! They're pre-prepped, heads, shells and innards all removed and ready to cook. :) Ricky, they're not small. They're the normal size for fried shrimp around here. Johnliu, interesting and informative article, thanks! The pictures showed them shells on, though. And reminded me that "shrimp/prawn" refers to any of 11 species. :)

So glad you enjoyed. The neighbors invited you for your company. I try to accommodate guests and most of mine who have either allergies or preferences are very undemanding. Most do as you did if it is a bring a dish gathering and bring something to share that they can eat. No one makes a big issue and they quietly enjoy what they can. My husband is allergic to certain seafood but we are still able to serve it or go to seafood events because it is not so severe he cannot be around it. We would never say we won’t show up to a boil ....it is about fellowship not just food. It doesn’t matter if it is allergy or preference, we invite people because we want their company. I do have a friend who is kosher and I always make sure with her that I am bringing something that is ok and normally get something from the kosher cafe near her....obviously she never has a crab boil. Also, one of my kids had a classmate growing up that was extremely allergic to peanuts. A small school so as parents we made sure any parties were geared to making the child safe but without making a show of it...we ran stuff by mom, who was very helpful and we did not make a big deal out of it in front of the child. I find it offensive that someone would suggest you sit at home because you cannot or do not eat a certain food. If my family and friends started excluding each other on our differences I would have to get a divorce, stop talking to the children and even my precious granddaughter who at 1 refuses to eat sweet potatoes and never see my in-laws again.!