Posted on 03/19/2006 7:10:28 AM PST by nuconvert
Why lobsters aren't food
BY DAVE BARRY
(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Jan. 26, 1996.)
I am pleased to report that the scientific community has finally stopped wasting time on the origins of the universe and started dealing with the important question, which is: Are lobsters really just big insects?
I have always maintained that they are. I personally see no significant difference between a lobster and, say, a giant Madagascar hissing cockroach, which is a type of cockroach that grows to approximately the size of William Howard Taft (1857-1930). If a group of diners were sitting in a nice restaurant, and the waiter were to bring them each a freshly killed, steaming-hot Madagascar hissing cockroach, they would not put on silly bibs and eat it with butter. No, they would run, retching, directly from the restaurant to the All-Nite Drive-Thru Lawsuit Center. And yet these very same people will pay $24.95 apiece to eat a lobster, despite the fact that it displays all three of the classic biological characteristics of an insect, namely:
1. It has way more legs than necessary.
2. There is no way you would ever pet it.
3. It does not respond to simple commands such as, ``Here, boy!''
I do not eat lobsters, although I once had a close call. I was visiting my good friends Tom and Pat Schroth, who live in Maine (state motto: ``Cold, But Damp''). Being generous and hospitable people, Tom and Pat went out and purchased, as a special treat for me, the largest lobster in the history of the Atlantic Ocean, a lobster that probably had been responsible for sinking many commercial vessels before it was finally apprehended by nuclear submarines. This lobster was big enough to feed a coastal Maine village for a year, and there it was, sprawling all over my plate, with scary insectoid legs and eyeballs shooting out in all directions, while Tom and Pat, my gracious hosts, smiled happily at me, waiting for me to put this thing in my mouth.
Remember when you were a child, and your mom wouldn't let you leave the dinner table until you ate all your Brussels sprouts, and so you took your fork and mashed them into smaller and smaller pieces in hopes of eventually reducing them to individual Brussels-sprout molecules that would be absorbed into the atmosphere and disappear? That was similar to the approach I took with the giant lobster.
''Mmmm-MMMM!'' I said, hacking away at the thing on my plate and, when nobody was looking, concealing the pieces under my dinner roll, in the salad, in my napkin, anywhere I could find.
Tom and Pat, I love you dearly, and if you should ever have an electrical problem that turns out to be caused by a seven-pound wad of old lobster pieces stuffed into the dining-room wall socket, I am truly sorry.
Anyway, my point is that lobsters have long been suspected, by me at least, of being closet insects, which is why I was very pleased recently when my alert journalism colleague Steve Doig referred me to an Associated Press article concerning a discovery by scientists at the University of Wisconsin.
The article, headlined ''Gene Links Spiders and Flies to Lobsters,'' states that not only do lobsters, flies, spiders, millipedes, etc., contain the exact same gene, but they also are all descended from a single common ancestor: Howard Stern.
No, seriously, the article states that the ancestor ''probably was a wormlike creature.'' Yum! Fetch the melted butter!
And that is not all. According to articles sent in by alert readers (this was on the front page of The New York Times), scientists in Denmark recently discovered that some lobsters have a weird little pervert organism living on their lips. Yes. I didn't even know that lobsters had lips, but it turns out that they do, and these lips are the stomping ground of a tiny creature called Symbion pandora (literally, ``a couple of Greek words''). The zoology community, which does not get out a lot, is extremely excited about Symbion pandora, because it reproduces differently from all other life forms.
According to various articles, when Symbion pandora is ready to have a baby, its digestive system ''collapses and is reconstituted into a larva,'' which the parent then gives birth to by ''extruding'' it from its ''posterior.'' In other words -- correct me if I am wrong here -- this thing basically reproduces by pooping.
So to summarize: If you're looking for a hearty entree that 1) is related to spiders, 2) is descended from a worm and 3) has mutant baby-poopers walking around on its lips, then you definitely want a lobster. I myself plan to continue avoiding them, just as I avoid oysters, which are clearly -- scientists should look into this next -- members of the phlegm family. Have you ever seen oysters reproduce? Neither have I, but I would not be surprised to learn that the process involves giant undersea nostrils.
And don't get me started on clams. Recently, I sat across from a person who was deliberately eating clams. She'd open up a shell, and there, in plain view, would be this stark naked clam, brazenly showing its organs, like a high-school biology experiment. My feeling is that if a restaurant is going to serve those things, it should put little loincloths on them.
I believe that Mother Nature gave us eyes because she did not want us to eat this type of food. Mother Nature clearly intended for us to get our food from the ''patty'' group, which includes hamburgers, fish sticks and McNuggets -- foods that have had all of their organs safely removed someplace far away, such as Nebraska. That is where I stand on this issue, and if any qualified member of the lobster, clam or phlegm-in-a-shell industry wishes to present a rebuttal, I hereby extend this offer: Get your own column.
I LOVE Dave Barry!
One of his funniest (to me) columns ever was about computer viruses.
Thanks for posting.
Lobster: a good excuse to eat lots of butter.
I can't read Dave Barry's humor without laughing out loud - can't say this about most others.
Hey Barry you want a rebuttal from people running the Fulton Fish Market in New York? Why don't you go to Sparks Steakhouse in Manhattan 1 night and tell the mobsters choking on their lobsters where you stand on this issue?
Any reasons are stated here why Lobsters, Clams and Crabs are NOT kosher and should NEVER be used as food.
This is funny. My husband still teases me about eating lobsters. The day after we were married, we drove straight from PA to Maine without stopping to eat. I was famished when we finally got to dinner, which was .lobster. I practically inhaled it. And after all these years, he still remembers and likes to tell the story of the time a lobster disappeared before his eyes...
Made me laugh out loud, thanks for posting!
I love lobster
I don't eat lobster because I can't taste it.
BWAHAHAHA! I told my Turkish brother-in-law, while my dad was preparing a lobster feast 30 years ago that they just looked like big, undersea bugs. He freaked! Hasn't eaten one since. That just means more for me!
pong
So do I. That's one thing that I loved about Maine. I could afford to eat it every night for dinner. I even got a lobster sandwich at the McDonald's there. We rarely eat it now because I can't justify the cost. A good substitute is very large shrimp, although I rarely buy them either. But either one is really a treat when I get it!
Clams taste exactly like what I'd expect licking a cows nose tastes like.
But, broiled twin lobster tails aren't what they used to be.....getting more tasteless and too expensive.
A heaping plate of big sweet chunks pulled out of Alaskan King Crab Legs along with plenty of hot, drawn REAL butter does it for me.
Even better than lobster if prepared correctly.
When eating crab, I also sometimes require little buckets attached to my elbows to catch the run-off.
Thats about the average size we get around here in the NW Florida panhandle. My biggest was 14 pounds. If I knew how to post pictures, I'd post it.
IMHO the florida spiny's are much tastier than the Maine bug's
BTW, I've seen pics and heard the stories of 60, yes 60 pound spiny's off the North Carolina coast.
When I lived in the Philippines, we had those crawling around the house at night. Kept a crossbow by the bed to kill them when they tried to enter the bedroom.
And you EAT them!?
"I even got a lobster sandwich at the McDonald's there. "
Wow!
Yuck!
Clams/oysters are bait. nuff said.
OTOH, crickets, locusts, and grashoppers are Kosher...
ROFL!
If you ever think you consume too much lobster, just ask a Navy Diver if he has any diving stories about recovering bodies from Davy Jones' locker and what significance lobsters have in the circle of life... (not for the squeemish).
I don't get to eat them too often because they are expensive but when I do, the easiest and maybe best way to fix them is to simply split the top of the tail, smear on some butter and put it in a microwave. Cook until it just loses that translucent color and eat.
See post above
A lobster would probably see no more difference between Dave Barry and a moderately large fish than he sees between lobsters and insects.
By the looks of it's size, YOU almost could have been "food!"
Great catch!
The only thing we could not catch for ourselves was Lobster. (I prefer crab anyway) But there were 4 different varieties of clam, 3 varieties of crab, 5 Salmon, Halibut, 3 Cod and countless fresh water varieties of fish.
A steady diet of seafood is good for the "Sole"!
Actually, they should never be eaten as food because they sit on the bottom of the bay or ocean and eat whatever pollution people throw into the water. Eating shellfish is like taking a drink from a sewage plant output stream.
Mobsters can eat whatever they like. They certainly don't need my permission.
Shalom.
And are, I understand, quite good with wild honey.
Shalom.
"Actually, they should never be eaten as food because they sit on the bottom of the bay or ocean and eat whatever pollution people throw into the water. Eating shellfish is like taking a drink from a sewage plant output stream."
Well, You can feed 12 chickens behind one hog.
Great big crawdads ALERT.
I don't eat carp and catfish for that reason.
I make exceptions for shellfish. ;~ )
I love lobster, clams, and especially raw oysters. One reason that I love the smell of the ocean is because it smells like oysters. yum. But remember, you have to bite it at least once before you swallow it to make sure it's dead. :-) That usually gets me more oysters.
From what I understand (which is not what a biologist understands) the digestive systems of critters with exoskeletons are very different from those of critters with skeletons.
I do know that long after a bay has been cleaned up enough to make the fish safe to eat, the shellfish can still make you sick.
Shalom.
Cut up a lobster before cooking, and you do see meat. Bugs are nothing but pus inside. I've stomped enough spiders, which I hate and would not eat.
"You've got to tell them...soylent red is my people!"
BINGO! Give the man a cigar!
That's true. I've always maintained that one could serve shoe soles if it had enough butter and garlic on it.
I can take it or leave it, but when we see them in the doom tank at the supermarket, the kid never asks me to buy one, and I am glad. They can really stink up a kitchen.
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