I recently tried a whole, fried shrimp. Have you ever seen a soft shell crab that's battered and fried and eaten whole? Same thing. This was a complete shrimp that was lightly battered and fried (head, body, tail, exoskeleton, organs). I wasn't too jazzed about eating it but I didn't want to be a lil biatch in front of my hosts either, so down the hatch it went. Meh, tastes like a crunchier shrimp.