August 16, 2019 Comments Off on “The cockroaches of the sea” – when lobster was food for the poor and prisoners Views: 1044 Looking Back, Nostalgia

The U.S. and Canada are the world’s best lobster consumers today. Even if your nation is not at all crazy about lobster—one of the fanciest and most expensive dishes you can order in a U.S. restaurant—you’ve probably caught a movie scene where a lavishly-served dinner indeed included a big, red, yummy lobster.

Lobsters go back with Native Americans. They used the unusual-looking marine animal for fishing and as a fertilizer. The website oceanpointinn.com further points out that Native Americans also first started baking lobster under seaweed over hot rocks, therefore starting the New England clambakes, a traditional method of cooking lobster.

Fishermen with lobster pots, Sheringham, Norfolk Sheringham, likely nearby Cromer, renowned for its fine crabs and lobsters. Here the fishermen are posed around the local style of lobster pot, several dressed in their sea boots and sou’westers. Both farming and fishing had long been important to the local economy. The railway, which reached the town in 1887, enabled local fishermen to sell their wares in London and attracted visitors to the town. Photo taken circa 1903

When the first European settlers crossed the pond, the coasts of the New World were abundant with lobsters. There were piles of them, so much that the clawed animal was perceived as a “poor man’s protein” or received other labels such as “cockroaches of the sea.” Which is quite hard to believe as today “lobster is one of the most sought-after luxury foods in the world, and its prices are experiencing a ten-year high,” as noted by the website lobsteranywhere.com.

At first, lobsters were hand-picked from the shores and were eaten only by those people who couldn’t afford much. Those who sold lobster earned not more than 2 pennies per pound. And those who ate lobster at home often tried to hide all evidence of their dinner, such as burying the shells in the grounds to assure neighbors won’t see and perhaps spread gossip.

Fishermen baiting crab or lobster pots at Sheringham, Norfolk, England (1920)

More accounts suggest that lobster was a regular on the menu in some prisons, or that workers who had been served the dish repeatedly over the course of a week are known to have gone on a strike. “In Massachusetts, some of the servants finally rebelled. They had it put into their contracts that they would not be forced to eat lobster more than three times a week,” according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute website.

Lobster-perception began to alter during the 19th-century when lobstering went on demand. E.L. Hamilton writes for the Vintage News that “as railway travel spread in the late 1800s, train operators served lobster as if it were a luxury menu item to inland customers who didn’t know the ‘insect’ food was considered trash.”

Lobster, Crab, and a Cucumber – painting by William Henry Hunt (watercolor, 1826 or 1827)

“Passengers loved it, and raved about the taste and experience, boosting lobster’s popularity. Meanwhile, upper-class visitors began traveling to Maine in the summer and were thrilled to try the exotic seafood,” she writes.

After trains, restaurants were next to include the clawed animal on menus. Chefs had quickly discovered that lobsters taste better when cooked alive, something which is now prohibited by law in countries such as Switzerland.

Photo of the American lobster (Homarus americanus), which is found on the Atlantic coast of North America, from Labrador to New Jersey. It is the heaviest crustacean in the world and also the heaviest of all living arthropod species.

Lobster, it was found out, also looked nice laid on a china plate, so from food for the poor and prisoners (and even pigs), it went on to be a fancy dish. Lobster demand and prices continually grew, at least until the Great Depression, when paying for such opulent menu choices became not an option for most people.

During World War Two, lobster was available as canned food. As a high source of protein, it was shipped to soldiers overseas and allegedly cost less than other canned foods such as beans. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the lobster reclaimed its status of elegant, expensive food. Consequently, the lobstering industry significantly developed.

Fishermen with their catch of the spiny lobster Jasus frontalis in the Juan Fernández Islands, Chile, Photo credit: Serpentus~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0

Lobster dinner downtown may normally range in between $30 and $50 for a lobster weighing up to 1/2 pounds (0.6 kg) these days. The bulkiest lobster on record was caught off Nova Scotia in 1988 and had weighed 44 pounds. It was found to be 42 inches long (106 centimeters) and according to estimates by scientists – this catch might have been some 100 years old.

Today, lobsters are not only a source of protein, elegance, and lavishness but also a source of good jokes. In case you haven’t heard about the fight at red lobster–four fish were battered. And in case you didn’t know what’s worse than having lobster on your piano—it’s having crabs on your organ.

We also thought to remind you of the Maya civilization which used chocolate as a form of currency

Tags: food perception, lobster history, Lobstering, US news, world cuisine