Read on Twitter
had an astonishing conversation with a food photographer who& #39;s worked on a load of big recipe books - don& #39;t want to say which but you& #39;d have heard of them - who told me something fascinating about prawns
prawns are slightly bioluminescent, which means they& #39;re impossible to photograph properly. but they& #39;re needed all the time, in photographs of paella etc.
there& #39;s a single company which has invested a great deal of money in genetically-engineered prawns to solve this problem - they& #39;ve produced six of them so far
so every time you see a photo of prawns in a recipe book, they are almost certainly the same six prawns. if you look at enough photos you can get to recognise them quite reliably
here, for instance - study the prawn at 3 o& #39;clock on the left-hand picture (hairy bikers paella) - it& #39;s patently the same as the lowest one beneath the lemon in the pic on the right (jamie oliver)
here& #39;s nigella& #39;s. notice anything familiar about the prawn at the top (tail protruding slightly over dish)?? that& #39;s right, it& #39;s our old friend the lowest prawn from the hairy bikers photo
claudia roden. working clockwise from top centre: the 1st prawn is jamie oliver& #39;s 3rd, the 2nd prawn is JO& #39;s 1st, the 3rd prawn is JO& #39;s 5th, the 4th prawn is under calamari so hard to make out but prob JO& #39;s 2nd. etc
rukmini iyer& #39;s paella photo shows the hazards of not using stunt prawns. due to bioluminescence interfacing with the camera flash, all the prawns have become so transparent they are completely invisible
