Consider the Lobster

[bec_87rb]

On Sunday morning, we went to Wegman's Grocery and as I tooled up the seafood aisle we passed a display of live lobster on ice. I hate that thing. The thought of lobsters slowly and painfully drying out, asphyxiating perhaps, makes me feel a little hysterical sometimes, as if I am witness to a major historical atrocity, and I do nothing. Only I

Comments

[ellisbell]

I feel sorry for them too. I love your descriptions.

[bec_87rb]

Oh, thank you. I should have taken a picture to share. Poor beast. I'm finding I can't eat lobster, and not out of some high-minded principle, I just see them live awaiting execution, and it puts me off the idea.

[chhinnamasta]

Fiery orange? Are you sure it was alive? They turn that color when cooked, with the occasional rare exception:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2011/07/05/quebec-rare-orange-lobster.html
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050214/full/news050214-4.html

They are greenish brown otherwise.

[bec_87rb]

Yes, he had brown on him, and he had to be living, unless he was a very clever animatronic lobster for display purposes. Like this! only with more fiery orange around the edges, and more attitude

[chhinnamasta]

Yes, I thought the Nature article was interesting, and it served to unveil the mysterious world of lobster shell coloring. I never eat lobster (or any crustaceans, for that matter). Their appearance is too bug-like, for my taste. If I don't have to, I'd rather not dismantle what looks like a giant insect at the dinner table.

[bec_87rb]

I hear you. I definitely remember being faced with my first steamed whole crab as an adult, and being fascinated with their obvious close kinship with arachnids, but mostly feeling kind of weird at his little face with mouth and eyes and claws that could still move, even after I had hollowed him out. I spent some time, moving the parts that were still hinged and moveable.

I felt badly for that strange delicious sea spider - he was so ugly and beautiful at the same time, and not entirely like something one should eat.

[chhinnamasta]

Look! Isn't he a beauty?

[bec_87rb]

Yes! And truly orange!