Whenever there's a celebration like a birthday, a wedding or an anniversary, there's usually good food as well. To some of us with expensive taste, this means luxurious food like caviar, oysters, wagyu beef, foie gras, truffles, and of course, lobsters. Expensive, but delicious, and it's worth partaking to commemorate the occasion.
However, while lobster is not something you would eat on a daily basis, is it true that lobster was once food meant for peasants?
Verdict:
True
Yes, this expensive shellfish was at one point in time accessible to the masses because it was abundant. Back in the 17th century, when the first European pilgrims arrived in New England, they faced an overpopulation of lobsters.
Historian William Wood, wrote in 1654, that people would use lobsters as bait for fishing or just eat them, and if they failed to catch bass for the day. Meanwhile, Native Americans used lobsters as fertilizer and fish bait.
The overpopulation of these crustaceans also caused people, who got sick of eating them, to feed them to animals, prisoners, and servants.
In the 18th century, servants in Massachusetts were so fed up with eating lobsters, that they added a clause to their contract that stated they could not be fed lobster more than three times a week.
Lobsters then remained unfavourable until the late 19th century, when US railway managers discovered if they billed it as a delicacy, passengers who didn’t know of its disgusting reputation thought it was delicious.
Around 1880, American chefs also took an interest in the lobster and discovered that its full spectrum of flavour is only brought out if it is submerged in boiling water while still alive. (Yes, before this, the lobsters fed to the people were cooked dead).
When this is happening, people from other parts of the world would visit Boston and New York to try lobster. As the years went by, lobster started showing up in salad bars, and by the 1920s, it had become the food of choice for the world’s aristocrats.
In the 1920s, overfishing reduced the availability of lobsters, and with high demand - the prices increased.
But when the Great Depression hit - the demand and prices for lobsters dropped, and it dropped from being premium food for the rich to food for the peasant again.
But it would not stay the same, because after the Second World War, things turned around and lobster is regarded again as a luxury product in high-end restaurants, and it remains as such until this very day.
With the current demand for it, regulation was in place to ensure the continuation of the species.
Even locally, the Fisheries Department plans to increase lobster production to 400 tonnes a year in the next decade through its conservation efforts.(https://www.thestar.com.my/metro/metro-news/2023/01/12/department-hopes-to-raise-lobster-production-to-400-tonnes-in-10-years)
The next time you savour that bite into a lobster roll, take note that it was in the past, it was something people got tired of eating.
References:
https://www.businessinsider.com/the-history-of-gourmet-lobster-2013-8
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xy7vzw/lobsters-delicious-history-is-completely-insane
https://knowledgenuts.com/lobster-was-once-a-poor-mans-food/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2006/03/how-lobster-clawed-its-way/
