When I’d had her just a few years, she developed liver inflammation that her vet reluctantly concluded would kill her in 6 months or so. To keep her going, I learned to give pills and shots and to not mind accidents on the carpet; and to make sure she wanted to keep going, I bought her the tastiest healthy things I could find.

One day during this regime, I was in my local grocery store, hunting down dinner. There was an attractive display of fresh shrimp, but—unusually for that store—they weren’t U.S. wild shrimp. The placard, in smaller type than usual, said: “Farmed. Asia.”

My cat loved shrimp. I thought it was worth a try. I bought some, drove them home, poached