How lobster rebranded itself as a luxury item

Once upon a time, lobster was considered a trash food, fit only for the lowest members of society. Early Massachusetts colonists fed lobster to their prisoners and slaves, who pushed back and insisted on laws preventing them from having to eat it more than three times a week.

Lobster was plentiful back then, and people always think of a plentiful food as being "common." And lobsters were bottom-feeders that looked like insects, which certainly counted against them. Lobster was the Kraft Single, the Spam, the store-brand macaroni and cheese mix of its day.

These days lobster is one of the poshest of the posh foods (particularly here on the west coast where the cost of shipping drives up the price).

I knew that lobster had gone through an amazing transformation over the last few hundred years, but it wasn't until I read this recent Pacific Standard article that I learned why, and how. It all happened when the railroads opened up travel to the west coast.

Like all transportation networks, they wanted to serve the cheapest possible food to their passengers. They hit on the idea of serving lobster on the west coast runs, because people from the west coast had no idea what lobster was, or that it had such a lousy reputation. In the absence of cultural prejudice, the western travelers loved lobster. They began clamoring for more, both on and off the train. And lobster's reputation began to turn around.

It also helped that cooks discovered that lobster is much better when it is cooked live. In the past, lobsters were killed, shelled, and their meat was usually canned. Just like every other meat industry. But cooks found that if you boil lobster alive, the meat remains much more tender and flavorful. I guess cows should be lucky we don't feel the same way about beef.

(By the way, it's a myth that lobsters scream when boiled. They have no vocal cords. It's just the sound of steam whistling through holes in their exoskeleton. However, as author David Foster Wallace discovered, lobsters do feel pain, and struggle to escape the pot.)

Image courtesy Flickr/Robert Banh