Spiny, cold, vaguely arachnid in aspect: the lobster was not endearing. He was big though, six pounds or so, and he seemed venerable because of his size, if not lovable. There was a certain air of alien dignity about him, for he must have lived long years in his dark and frigid North Atlantic home. There was a pitiable impotence to him as well, his enormous claws rendered functionless by rubber bands. His was an inscrutable countenance. His eyes were depthless and his antennae moved barely at all. His mottled shell of blue and rust iron and verdigris was little proof against whatever forces I would turn against him. His legs twitched, but there seemed little fight left, and as we regarded each other the inevitable end was already written.
It was an odd scene for Valentine’s Day. My wife had splurged the evening before and brought us home two Homarus for a special dinner in. One was a bantam weight bug of a pound and quarter, about the usual size I’ve been acquainted with, but the other was the afformentioned bruiser. The role of lobster wrangler, executioner, and chef du cuisine would fall to me. And so it was that as the Valentine’s evening darkened around the house and an orchid, book, and card waited thoughtfully for my wife’s return from work, I contemplated the fathomless thoughts of an overgrown oceanic arthropod.
How much was really going on between those beady black eyes? What conception of existence did those lobsters truly have and what culpability did I have in their approaching demise? I won’t say I didn’t feel some guilt. But was that guilt merely a product of misplaced anthropomorphism, or an all-too human respect for age? Would I feel the same having to kill a spider, or chopping down a tree that had stood for a century? Neither is a thing I’d do without reason or compunction, but nor am I some veil-wearing Jainist, unwilling to inhale a gnat or trod on a worm. I’ve killed plenty of animals I cared about more, and long since made peace with a more cyclical view of life, death, and consumption.
But the lobster did give me pause. He was far less cognoscente of the world, I’m sure, than a hog or a cow or a turkey, and I’ve made a life on raising those animals for the table. Maybe it was the luxury of it that rankled me. It was one thing to raise and slaughter an animal to sustain myself and sustain the farm, but the thought of pulling a creature from his benthic domain for the sole purpose of treating ourselves to his, admittedly, sweet and buttery flesh was a touch problematic. Had he been treated well in transit? Maybe, but unlikely. Was the lobster fishery sustainable? It’s fairly well managed from what I understand, and some sources say that a decrease in predator populations has lead to a resurgence in lobster numbers. Was I going to let my own doubt and sympathy prevail and drive our erstwhile Valentine’s dinner back to the sea for a clumsy release into the foreign waters of Long Island sound? Of course not.
In the end I did for the lobsters what I try to do for all animals I raise and consume: I killed them as quickly as possible and appreciated their sacrifice as best I could. With a sharp knife I bisected their thoraxes (a live dunking into boiling water is more barbaric and wholly unnecessary). I cooked them simply and well, and my wife and I ate every morsel, and were grateful. Now the shells are boiling away for stock, and the lobsters will give us one more meal as a bisque or paella or risotto. I don’t know if the lives of lobsters are worth more or less than some others that are laid before the culinary altar, but I will say that rarely has a meal been more enjoyed, or so lovingly baptized with butter. Maybe in whatever oceanic burrow he calls home, the cold-eyed, predatory god of crustaceans nibbles on detritus and clicks his claws in approval.
Or maybe he just waits, hungrily, for the next time I go for a swim.
The Edible Complex 