Lobster and Closure

We both noticed the sign pop up down the street on Thursday. “FRESH LOBSTERS OFF THE BOAT, SATURDAY 12-5PM”. Adam’s ears perked up if he had a tail it would have been wagging “Can we get lobster this weekend? Can we?”.

I hesitated. I had never had lobster as an adult. In fact the last time I had lobster I was 9 years old and it was a traumatic enough of an event that it kept me off those crustacean for the past, oh, 20 years.

We were on a family vacation in Maine. When the topic of having lobster for dinner came up I was excited, as I had heard much about it but had never tried it before. We all went off to the lobster pound to pick out our dinner and I think the whole idea of “this thing I am picking out is going to be killed and then I am going to eat it” went over my head. In some way I didn’t reconcile that the lobster I had picked out, and was already kind of thinking of as a pet, was what I would be eating a few hours later. It freaked me right out. The adults assuaged me though. The lobsters don’t feel any pain. This is their destiny. You eat chickens and they were once alive too. All of it made sense so eventually I was like, Ok, I will eat this lobster. SO the guys built a kind of pit on the beach, lined with corn husks and involving bricks and soon the time had come to throw the lobsters in and while I didn’t watch it happen, I was resolved that I was ok with it. Until the screaming started.

A distinct screaming sound was coming from the pit where the lobsters were cooking. And so I screamed as well. My god they were being burned alive and screaming in agony!!

It turns out, this was just the steam passing through their shells and they had in fact, been dead for minutes at that point. But still. To my fragile 9 year old mind, me! A person so sensitive at the time that I would find myself wholly concerned with questions like “Who will do the Perdue commercials when Frank Perdue dies?”, I flipped out and was sufficiently freaked out enough as to not eat my lobster that night nor ever again.

Until this weekend though!

We walked down to the boat on Saturday morning, bought two lobsters and I thought, it is too long to hold onto those tainted lobster memories. I was resolved as long as it was not I who had to boil them, I would eat mine. So Adam set to task that night and I am happy to report there were no screams (from me OR the lobsters), and they were actually quite good!



I am glad that this, one of my last food-related bugaboos, has been exorcised!! Even if it did take 20 years.