From sea to shining sea, we are a nation of shrimp. Eaters, that is. Not to slight the eminence of halibut or lobster in the East, salmon or king crab in the West, crawfish or stone crab in the South. Just to say that if shrimp turns up on a table anywhere in America, hungry diners will start lining up.

Besides their succulent flavor, culinary versatility also plays a big role in shrimp's popularity, right along with its nationwide and largely year-round availability. Maybe that's why Americans put away more than 1 billion pounds of shrimp every year, fresh and frozen, from the most diminutive scampi to their gargantuan cousins known as prawns.

Boiled, steamed, sautéed, baked, fried, grilled, stewed -- if Forrest Gump's Vietnam buddy Bubba hadn't been killed in action, he'd probably still be rattling off terrific ways to cook up this versatile crustacean.

We Americans are hardly by ourselves in our love affair with shrimp, though. In China, shrimp are stir-fried with vegetables. In Greece, they're served bubbling with tomato, lemon juice, and feta. Along the coasts of South America and Australia, they're grilled over flame on the sand.

Shrimp themselves don't suffer from sameness, either. Pink shrimp are hauled in along the Atlantic from Maryland to the Florida Keys and into the Gulf of Mexico; brown shrimp hail from the same waters and also as far north as Massachusetts. White shrimp come from the Atlantic up to North Carolina, but mostly from the Gulf as far west as Texas. Shrimp from the Pacific (Washington and Alaska primarily) are usually smaller, averaging 3 to 6 inches, than those from warm Southern waters, where Gulf shrimp grow as large as 10 inches.

Most shrimp are flash-frozen in large blocks at sea to allow boats to stay out longer; then the shrimp are defrosted and sold as "fresh." That's usually what you're buying from the grocery seafood case; the quick freeze preserves both flavor and texture, and doesn't affect cooking. For a truly fresh catch, you'd probably have to be at dockside when the fleet comes in -- and be a shrimper's friend.