In 1959 a casino in downtown Las Vegas began selling shrimp cocktail for fifty cents, piled into a tulip sundae glass, a vessel built for ice cream and quietly reassigned. It was cheap, cold, a little bit glamorous, and it could be eaten with one hand while the other stayed on the table. Downtown went on selling it for decades; by 1991 the price had crept up to ninety nine cents, and the glass had become a piece of the city's folklore. The sauce is older still, a mix of tomato and horseradish born in West Coast saloons in the nineteenth century, when oysters, not shrimp, were the thing being dunked.

The Las Vegas version keeps to the essentials: plenty of shrimp, plenty of sauce, a wedge of lemon, and very little in the way of salad to get in between. It is the right food for a crowd on its feet at a night race, and the right thing to hand guests as the cars line up on the grid. Make it ahead, keep it cold, and serve it in the tallest glasses you own.

The poached shrimp

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lb (680 g) raw shrimp, 41/50 count
• 8 cups (2 liters) water
• 2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 lemon
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• about 4 cups ice cubes

Cocktail sauce

Ingredients

• 1 cup (240 ml) ketchup
• 2 to 3 tablespoons prepared horseradish
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 1 pinch ground black pepper

To serve

Ingredients

• 1 cup (50 g) finely shredded iceberg lettuce
• 1 lemon
• 1 sleeve saltine or other plain crackers

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