Lobster today is viewed as a delicacy, but was once reviled
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Sure, maybe the class-based issues made it less likely that people would be willing to try even lobster done right, but I don't think lobster as it was once served would have much more success today.
there's a difference though between "just-killed fresh" and "cooked alive fresh". i would prefer the former without hesitation. though canned is def not a great alternative.
http://www.cookingissues.com/2012/07/04/how-to-become-a-seaf...;
I know years ago only the poor kids ate lobster, if you had a lobster sandwich at school you were taunted. First Nations people here used to use lobsters as fertilizer for their crops.
There are a lot of lobster fishermen in my region, my uncle and cousins fish lobster, right now there is a glut of lobster and processing plants have put restrictions on how much they will accept from fishermen. This was after a strike by fishermen last month trying to force processors to give them $5/pound but after a few weeks of being on strike they're only going to get $3/pound.
I know it's a living creature but it's pretty basic as far as intelligence goes I don't eat it but a knife to the brain or instant death in boiling water doesn't seem too cruel, not nice but not cruel. People eat oysters live, boil mussles and crabs alive and they're not too far from a lobster.
Some supermarkets in Germany won't allow lobsters unless they have been killed using a special machine: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/05/03/pei-lobst...
They cooked lobster alive back then (1930s), so the cooked dead thing must be region specific.
That's because they basically are, since crustaceans are likely more closely related to proper insects than millipedes, centipedes, and arachnids are.
Well, I guess that's valid for pretty much all food from dead animal origin
As Thomas Bushnell once pointed out to me, lobster has the interesting characteristic of being delicious, but making you very sick if you eat it all of the time. The diaries from which we get the descriptions of how horrible people around Massachusetts Bay thought lobster was, ALSO contain descriptions of how wonderful it was. It was only after having little choice but to eat it frequently that their extreme aversion developed.
Try it. Try to eat lobster every day for a month. See what you think about it then.
When one develops a taste aversion towards a food, after one has become sick shortly after eating said food.
I think the stuff about humanely killing the lobsters is hogwash. Boiling and eating a live lobster is one of the few meals where you have to confront the fact that we kill so that we can eat. Hold them upside down, plunge the lobster headfirst into the boiling water, and give thanks for life. And make sure you have a pot with a heavy lid.
Is there any disadvantage to stabbing the lobster in the head first? I mean, it just takes a second or two per lobster.
[1989] http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/26/garden/how-a-humble-cut-go...
Now about PBR... being from the Midwest and a bit of a beer snob PBR was largely the defacto-standard because it was the cheapest lawnmower beer that wasn't a BMC (Bud-Miller-Coors).
The same could be said about lobster - there's a story behind it.
Sure, 'they're all made up'... so is the value of gold, but they also have some interesting history behind them if you are willing to go beyond the surface.
* < $1/bottle
I swear, the moment you think you have a handle on the jargon...
What, may I ask, is a lawnmower beer? One made out of grass?
Mowing the grass is a hot activity, done in the sun (can't mow wet grass) so you want a light bodied beer that is best when frigid (Guinness is out). There is also probably some notion of mowing your own grass being something that you don't do if you can afford to pay a neighborhood kid or landscaping company to do it for you, so cheap beers are picked. You probably shouldn't get absolutely sloshed while mowing the lawn either so that excludes a lot of choices as well.
Basically a shitty, cheap, refreshing, and ubiquitous beer.
relativistic contraction FTW.
That was skirt steak, though flank steak has also shot up in price due to its newfound popularity (presumably because it's fairly lean, fairly tender, and easy to prepare).
I don't consider skirt steak a poor cut by any means. It has a great amount of flavor and is tender enough to be cooked with high heat (though certainly not as tender as the best steaks). I often see "eye of round" and similar cuts sold as "for grilling". Those are what I consider poor cuts (for grilling at least), and I would much rather have skirt steak.
In my country, I believe skirt steak always ends up becoming ground beef for things like hamburgers. Which is a bit odd, when I think about it, since most stores do carry rump (aka round) steak cuts, which is also a not very good, not very tender cut. That's what I think you mean by "eye of round"?
Out of curiosity, what country are you from? I'm shocked to hear that they turn skirt steak into ground beef. That seems like a waste to me (and seems like a job for something like chuck roast).
I think "eye of round" is the center part of the round/rump, as opposed to top or bottom round, but I'm not certain. And yes, it's a poor cut for steak. Probably okay for roasting if done properly, but I've never tried.
That really interesting that you have to pre-order this. It's also interesting because it highlights that you actually have butchers. :) We have butchers in Seattle, of course, but most people get their meet from the supermarket now (in some parts of the country there are no standalone butchers anymore).
BTW, during the financial crisis, a collapse in demand and a bumper crop of lobsters drove the price way down. In late 2008 you could pick up $2 lobsters in supermarkets in Massachusetts. My family ate a lot of lobster for those few months...
Whenever you eat something there is going to be a yuck-factor if it is feeding off of garbage.
I suppose that is a common factor for lobster, pigs and dogs. All of them "unclean" in Judaism.
The lobster is killed quickly with a knife in their main nerve cluster (the article calls it the brain, but I think that's giving it too much credit). Time is then provided for the muscles to stop seizing, and it is brined to improve texture and to prevent coagulation of the hemolymph to the meat. Then the lobster is divided and different parts are cooked for different times just like we commonly do for most other kinds of meat.
I thought HN might be interested, since many of us are incorrigible optimizers.
This article is interesting as far as showing the history of why it was reviled in early times, but I think the same could be said of anything else...
Why do people eat lobster? They like chewy butter.
Either way, salmon was very abundant and became expensive/exclusive. It is getting cheaper again lately, though.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...
http://www.danwei.org/advertising_and_marketing/pabst_goes_u...
Source: I come from a coastal town and love crab, but couldn't eat it more than one or two times a week.
1) although, being from ND, I have yet to meet a beer drinker willing to drink PBR
For aluminum, it seems to me there was also the novelty. The metal was a new discovery and had that odd low density.
depends on your opinion of vodka...