As a boy, I thought I had a handle on how shrimp should taste. That confidence was based on our family excursions to a local restaurant called the Dardenelles in Falls Church, Va. I felt quite grown up ordering a starter of shrimp cocktail. Little did I realize that those six headless, barely thawed creatures that were presented in a footed metal bowl had less taste than the cracked ice on which they were bedded: What I really loved was the bright red cocktail sauce that came in a paper cup.

My shrimp epiphany had to wait until I was a 20-year-old midshipman, stationed for one steamy summer on a minesweeper based in Charleston, S.C. On a Sunday, a knowledgeable shipmate took me to a backwater wharf where a vendor sold us a pail of unshelled shrimp straight off the trawler and dipped them on the spot into a spicy boil. Who knew that shrimp, which we peeled messily out of their never-frozen shells, could taste of the briny sea as vividly as a just-shucked oyster?

On a gray Sunday evening last month, I had another fresh shrimp epiphany, this time in my own Upper West Side kitchen. I’d brought home a quart of previously unknown (to me) Maine red shrimp from a booth at a one-day sustainable food market held at the vacant New Market Building at the former Fulton Street fish market. With their long, coral-tinted antennae and bulbous black eyes protruding on stems, these smallish, naturally deep red shrimp were on the creepy-crawly side of the crustacean zone. But looks can be deceiving.

Much of our shrimp is farm raised and flash frozen in places as far away as Thailand and Indonesia. But here was a species that lives wild off our own East Coast, cruising the Gulf of Maine’s clean waters. Eyeballing a shrimp, I observed glistening dots of gray roe on the bottom of its abdomen. Instead of the intense fishiness of sturgeon eggs, these gave off a fresh sea scent. Though not much of a sushi person, I couldn’t resist popping that shrimp into my mouth, raw and whole. Its delicate shell crunched like popcorn. Within, its juicy, tender meat captured the essence of the sea as those South Carolina shrimp once had, and as frozen versions never can.

Harkening back to that long-ago dockside experience, I briefly boiled the rest of the shrimp in a spicy broth. They were a disappointment: The edge had come off their delicate sea taste, and they were too soggy after the crispness of the raw shrimp. Most of them went uneaten.

Then, two weeks ago, my faith in Maine red shrimp was unexpectedly restored at Back Forty, an informal new Lower East Side spot (190 Avenue B, between 11th and 12th streets, 212-388-1990) intent on sourcing food from as close as possible to its kitchen. The dish that persuaded me was called “flash fried red Maine shrimp with lime, cilantro, and jalapeño salt.” Served with heads and shells on, the shrimp had only their long antennae plucked off. I ate them whole, savoring the crunch of the shell, the sweet meat, and the juicy head portion. “It’s interesting that, unlike other types of shrimp, you can eat the whole thing — head, shell, meat, little legs,” Back Forty’s 28-year-old chef de cuisine, Shanna Pacifico, said from her kitchen late last week. “But not everyone agrees with how I serve them.”

The Maine red shrimp (pandalus borealis) loves cold water, and the Gulf of Maine is its southernmost residence. It starts out its life as a male, and then at age 3 becomes a female. It moves from deep water into the coastal shallows to spawn in the winter months. Red shrimp have been caught commercially in Maine for decades, but dramatic swings in population dictate an unreliable supply. The official season ranges between 25 days in scarce years and this season’s 152 days, running from December through April.

This year, shrimp is plentiful, the commissioner of Maine’s marine resource department, George Lapointe, said in a telephone interview. “Compared to other species, you can cook red shrimp into mush in no time,” Mr. Lapointe warned — a piece of advice that was too late for my own kitchen experiment. “The thing to do is throw them into the pan and only cook them until they don’t look done” — cooking the shrimp only until their shells turn bright red. “It’s not like buying a bag of Wal-Mart shrimp which you can cook for three minutes or three hours,” he said.

Asked to adapt her flash fried Maine red shrimp to a home kitchen, Back Forty’s Ms. Pacifico readily obliged. Her method worked well in my kitchen, although instead of cilantro, I used snippets from the winter-defying basil plant on my window. And, just as I was about to shop for chilies, I remembered a visit I’d made last October to Swindler’s Cove, the serenely beautiful, underused park created by Bette Midler along the Harlem River at Dyckman Street. From its vegetable garden, I’d harvested a handful of slender, bright red and green chilies. Now fully dried, they’d lain out of sight and were forgotten in a bowl. They ultimately went into my chili salt, their deep heat lingering after what Ms. Pacifico calls “that ocean open air flavor” of the red shrimp subsided. The dish was so good that I didn’t even yearn for cocktail sauce.

Shanna Pacifico’s Flash Fried Maine Red Shrimp with Lime, Cilantro, and Jalapeño Salt (adapted to the home kitchen)

1 pound Maine red shrimp (see note)
2/3 cup flour
1/3 cup cornstarch
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced
Peanut oil
Heaping teaspoon of finely diced jalapeño chili
Handful of de-stemmed cilantro leaves
Juice of one medium lime

1. Remove antennae but leave shrimp heads on. 2. Toss the shrimp and coating mixture in a paper bag lightly to coat. 3. Pour half an inch of peanut oil in a large pan. When a drop of water sizzles in the oil, add shrimp without crowding the pan. 4. Fry for two minutes; turn the shrimp and fry for two more minutes. Drain on paper towels, then transfer the shrimp to a bowl.

5. Toss with lime juice, onion, cilantro, and jalapeño salt to taste.

Note: I bought fresh Maine red shrimp at Citarella (2135 Broadway at 75th Street) for $7.99 per pound. Whole Foods at Columbus Circle offers them headless at $5.99 per pound. They may also be available at Wild Edibles at Grand Central Market and at Chinatown fish markets. Their deep red color should stand out. Deliveries may be interrupted by bad weather in the fishing grounds, so call ahead.