Smartie's Bar & Grill #68

I saw a show recently where they were saying that lobster used to be considered trash too. Lobster of all things! I guess I can kind of understand, in that it is a bottom feeder. Bottom feeders eat a lot of stuff that is pretty gross. Flounder are bottom feeders too.

 

Here's a link about the lobster.

http://gizmodo.com/lobsters-were-once-only-fed-to-poor-people-and-prisoner-1612356919

And here is a little excerpt. Pretty interesting!

That Surf and Turf now costs an arm and a leg thanks to lobster's recent resurgence in popularity. But, as David Foster Wallace's famous essay, Consider the Lobster illustrated, throughout Colonial-era America, the crustacean was considered among the least desirable foods one could put in their face—a garbage meat fit only for the indigent, indentured, and incarcerated.


These days a live lobster will go for easily $5 a pound, according to the Main lobster industry, though they can easily spike 20 percent or more in a single season, as they did in 2012, climbing as high as $14 depending on how many fishermen can catch.


However, when the colonists first arrived on the shores of New England, they faced the opposite problem: an overabundance of the shellfish. An unimaginable overabundance. Lobsters used to wash up on shore in drifts two-feet tall. One 17th century British historian by the name of William Wood visited Newfoundland and noted, "Their plenty makes them little esteemed and seldom eaten [except by the Indians who] get many of them every day for to baite their hooks withal and to eat when they can get no bass."

The lobster also quickly earned a reputation for being a vacuous bottom feeder, willing to put anything—no matter how barely edible—in its craw. People ate so much lobster they got sick of it—though it doesn't help that they only cooked lobsters dead back then, not alive as we do today.



People got so fed up with lobster meat, in fact, that they stopped eating it altogether. Or at least the respectable members of society did so. Instead, they began feeding it to their livestock—as well as the financially destitute, criminals, and indentured servants—rather than eat it themselves. According to 19th century Kentucky politician and social observer, John Rowan, the meat quickly became synonymous with lower classes of society and quipped "Lobster shells about a house are looked upon as signs of poverty and degradation." The meat was so reviled that indentured servants in one Massachusetts town successfully sued their owners to feed it to them three times a week at most. We should all be so unlucky.


The stigma stuck for years. During the Victorian era, you'd spend about 53 cents per pound of Boston baked beans but just 11 cents per pound of lobster. However, some folks were willing to give lobster a shot as far back as the 1850s. Sure, it'd be the lowest price item on the menu—roughly half of what you'd pay for even chicken—and nobody would be caught dead eating one but it was available. Lobster was something you'd feed to your cat, not your dinner guests.

It was actually the rise of seasonal tourism in the 1870s—wherein the well-to-do from New York and Washington would retreat to Boston from the region's oppressive heat and humidity that lobster began becoming a sought after item. Visitors, upon returning home from their vacations, would find themselves still craving Boston baked beans and boiled lobster. And, more importantly, willing to pay handsomely to get more.

 

Now you're cooking! That salsa verde infusion is a great idea. Fast, easy and all about the fish - amping up the fish - perfect. Will try it soon.

 

Lots of little bones there...be careful....have fun!!!

 

Besides lobsters look icky. LOL

 

They taste good though.

 

Been eating them for years... No problem.

 

I do think lobster is overrated though. Maybe that's just because I've had it a lot though. I mean, I like it and all, but it I'd rather have a T bone steak and a twice baked potato!

 

Lobster is my very favorite shellfish.

 

I like it as far as seafood goes. Mussels are good too. Steamed clams. I was raised on that stuff. You probably have to be raised on steamed clams and mussels to like them. I made a friend of mine try them once, and she almost threw up.

 

I learned this from an authentic Mexican restaurant.

I have loved salsa verde on my fish tacos ever since.

 

That is the biggest draw back to eating some fish the bones.

 

The best fish in the world to me is the yellow tail and mangrove snapper. The taste is something to savor. I love seafood. I will not eat some of the exotic sounding fish from Asia that some restaurants are pushing at people. The best thing to do at a restaurant is ask
where the fish originate. No fish from Asia.

 

Nothing like fresh caught lobster.

 

Good Monday to everyone or Good Moanday which ever fits the way you feel today.

 

Never been to an Aldis store. My cousin raves about their chocolate. Have you bought any of the chocolate that is supposed to be the "best ever"?

 

If the Earth really was flat, then cats would have knocked every thing off by now.

 

Damn, late to the party!

 

Good morning, fans of Moanday. Got us a brand new week.

 

I don't like clams or mussels either. I love crabs and shrimp, and I don't like scallops either. I also don't like strong flavored fish like swordfish...but I love Cod.

 

Fish Tacos ??? You won't see that on any 3,4 let alone 5 star
restaurants menu. I doubt even a hungry Grizzly bear could get
worked-up over Fish Tacos.I say If a fellar is gonnna have a food
prejudice it ought'n be with Mexican food.Like in the great movie :
- Giant - { 1956 } and the closing scene in a beanery.

 

Art in a Central Texas restaurant ... ITA

 

In a land far, far away (from here) we used to have our own lobster traps. 50 cents worth of bait, a six pack of beer for the man who owned the boat, and we had ourselves dinner. We got at least three dinners out of it, and have pictures of our kitten meeting the lobster the first time in his young life.

Until the profession lobstermen found our trap line and cut it.

 

I Have been strung out on fish tacos for years. It's tough to find proper ones unless you are in a costal town in old Mexico. Every summer we spend a week or two on the houseboat up on lake Powell. I always manage to get a nice pile of striped bass. 30 minutes from biting my hook to being a plate of tacos. Now that's some eatin' there. I typically put out for some catfish too and make a big bowl of ceviche to go with tortilla chips and beer.

 

All of that will taste very good if done right, but If a first experience is mediocre are worse a second try may be long in coming. Expert cooks often suggest techniques that guarantee failure at home.