Eleanor + shrimp 🦐
one thing i love as a character note on eleeanor’s love of shrimp is that it’s funny and joyous, how unabashedly this woman loves to eat… and it’s also significant that this woman also grew up poor and neglected in arizona and she eats as much shrimp as she can, whenever she can.
arizona is in the american southwest, it’s a landlocked desert territory. while shrimp can be dirt cheap low-class street food in coastal cities, seafood is generally considered high class fine dining in desert states like arizona.
in more recent decades, shipping and refrigeration has made it easier to import seafood, so eleanor can treat herself to a party platter at the grocery store, but the association is still that shrimp is a classy treat you splurge on, not cheap meat you can get anywhere.
eleanor pretty much raised herself, and has done some deeply shitty things to get by. shrimp, especially classy shrimp cocktails, would have been an aspirational food to her, a sign that she doesn’t just have enough money to make it through another day, but also to treat herself to the ultimate high-class grown-up fancy-shmancy delicacy. her idea of heaven necessarily includes all-you-can-eat shrimp, because that’s what would really, fundamentally signify to her that she’s gotten her divine reward.
the good place is full of cool little details like that and i love it