Lobsters: the original peasant food?
PLUS, THEY’RE HIGH IN B12!
Lobster fishing off the East Coast of Canada is a tradition dating back 150 years. And it’s big business—the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine estimates that the lobster industry accounts for more than $4 billion of economic activity in the United States and Canada. In the summer of 2012, a lobster glut sent prices plummeting—hurting lobstermen in both Canada and the United States.
Lobster is often sold as a luxury item in restaurants today, and it’s priced higher than most seafood. But it wasn’t always that way. Go back 200 years and lobster was the food of poor people. It was considered the meal of indentured servants and lower society. British POWs during the Revolutionary War supposedly revolted over being fed too much lobster. For some, it was seen as the equivalent of eating rats. It was even used to make fertilizer.
ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN
Reportedly, folks in the Canadian Maritimes in the early 1800s would bury their lobster shells in the yard rather than suffer the shame of having someone see them toss the lobster carcasses in the trash. But by the mid-19th century, tastes were shifting, and gradually lobster became the elite thing to eat. Poor folks could no longer afford the tasty crustacean.
LOBSTERS IN THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
Scientists believe that lobsters do not age in any traditional sense and could potentially live indefinitely because their organs do not degenerate. It has been suggested that, absent predators, lobsters could live on and on. It takes a lobster six to eight years to reach a market weight of approximately .45 kilograms (1 pound). To put a lobster to sleep, place it on to its back for a few minutes. Some prefer to do this before placing lobster in the boiling water used to cook it. One more fascinating fact: Lobsters have taste organs located in their feet.