Well it's good to be a calico lobster. Last week a very stylish lobster was rescued from the clutches of hungry diners when restaurant owners noticed it scrabbling around the bottom of its tank. Jasper White, the owner of Cambridge, Massachussetts restaurant Summer Shack spotted the unusually-colored lobster from across the dining room one night. It had golden speckles! Now the so-called "calico lobster" is expected to live out the rest of its days in an aquarium, far away from melted butter and lemon slices.
Well good for that lobster. But what about the rest of these creatures? Can you think of any other animal we see alive right before we sit down and eat it? Is there something, oh I don't know, barbaric about eating lobster?
I'm all for understanding where your food comes from -- especially if you eat meat. And I can cook whole animals: Chickens, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, no problem! I know they were once alive, and I'm totally all right with that. When's dinner?
But lobsters take that to a whole new level. I know the point is to serve indisputaby fresh lobster -- and to prove that freshness to us diners. But we all know how lobsters are killed: Plunked right into a pot of boiling water. Can you hear the screaming?
Actually, you're supposed to stab them in the back of the head -- or something like that. I found that out after the last time I tried to boil lobster. Which I have done. But that's still better than displaying your still-alive dinner in a showy tank like you're at some decadent Roman bacchanal. Behold! The animal upon whose flesh you shall shortly dine! ENJOY. I don't know. Do I have to meet my dinner before I eat it?
How do you feel about seeing your lobster alive before eating it?
Image via tuppus/Flickr