Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.
1987 summer
I have always loved lobster and had no quams about eating in anytime or anywhere...whether I was buying it at a restaurant or cooking it myself at home..until one of my coworkers in a past life/job told me that eating a lobster was the same as eating a giant spider as they were in the same family. I have an extreme hatred of spiders and this totally unnerved me. I thought she was lying until I looked it up for myself. It is true. Spiders and lobsters are in the same family. It was about a year before I ate another lobster after that. My friend also told me that if you listen very closely when you place the lobster in the hot water you can even hear it scream. (Damn her!)
At that year mark I went to the store and picked out a nice, fiesty lobster and a bottle of wine to cook at home. The grocer placed those large, red rubber bands around the claws so that I would not get pinched. I got the lobster home and placed him in the fridge while I got the large lobster pot and set the water to boil. After about 15 minutes I had a large pot of roiling water, perfect to pop a lobster in. I got the lobster out of the fridge and slid him out of the paper bag. His two large red claws were still rubber banded closed. The lobster was sitting on the kitchen counter just above the silverware drawer. I opened the silverware drawer and got out the kitchen sheers and cut off the rubber bands. This is what I have always done. I would then grab the lobster by the back tail and plop him headfirst into the boiling water. No problem.
That day there was a problem. All of a sudden when I took off the rubber bands, that lobster reared up its claws at me in attach mode and moved forward. Claws were clicking--clickity clack! Clickity clack! This was a 13 pound lobster so it was pretty big. I jumped back. The lobster walked forward off the counter and dropped into the open silverware drawer. That lobster fought for his life. In the end I won but it was a hard battle. That battle lasted for about 45 minutes.
When the lobster dropped into the silverware drawer it backed up and wedged itself in. The drawer was only 1/2 way open so that lobster wedged in and was not coming out. It continued to waved thoses clicking claws at me. I grabbed a long barbeque spatula and placed it in its claws. The lobster clamped down on the spatula and would not let go. Then I grabbed a pair of tongs and grabbed onto the center of the spatula and pulled. I pulled and the lobster also pulled--backwards.
What was I going to do? I began to panic. Finally, I pulled the drawer out all the way and, pulled on the tongs and grabbed the back of lobster with my hand wrapped in a dishtowel. Finally I was able to get it out. I was unable to drop it headfirst into the pot of boiling water due to the claws still clamped around the spatula. Tailfirst it went and it finally released the spatula and I was able to get the whole thing submerged.
I was unnerved--totally. While the lobster boiled for the next 20 minutes I thought about how hard it wanted to live and that it fought to its' death. I was very upset that I could not get it in headfirst for an instant death. I thought about it being the same as a large spider and finally when it was done, I almost could not eat it. It almost made me ill. Those long spidery legs, the fight, those clicking claws. I did eat it but there was no joy in eating it.
It was about three years before I ate another one. Now, the whole lobster goes in with rubber bands on, head first and there had never been another lobster fighting for its' life in my kitchen.
Lobster Info
So what is a lobster do you ask? A mammal, a fish or some primitive sea creature? Well, in case you don’t know a lobster belongs to the category Invertebrata, one of the two categories making up the animal kingdom. Unlike us humans who belong to the other group, Vertebrata, invertebrates lack a vertebral column (a backbone).
This is the classification system that all scientists use to categorize animals. Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Below is the classification for Homarus americanus.
Kingdom: Anamilia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Crustacea
Order: Decapoda
Family: Nephropidae
Genus: Homarus
Species: americanus
Lobsters are actually closely related to insects! It’s hard to believe that these beady-eyed, clawed-clothed marine animals could be closely related to a mosquito or a grasshopper, but indeed they are. Lobsters, like insects, belong to the invertebrate phylum Arthropoda. Besides lobsters and insects, spiders and snails belong to this group as well. These animals are closely related because of two main characteristics that they share: they all have an exoskeleton (outer skeleton) and they all have joint appendages. More Info.
I don't eat lobster. I can't do the disconnect. I would put one in my backyard pond if it wouldn't eat my fish. I personally love spiders. Not to eat though. They eat other bugs and I always welcome those really big and colorful banana spiders that weave that 4 foot web between my areca palms. My Florida yard is just crawling with spiders, lizards, snakes, frogs and toads. I breed fat fresh earthorms under the rocks by the side of the pond. Since I don't spray plants to kill bugs, all the crawley creatures stay alive. I have tons of cocoons hanging on the house and trees. In Spring and Summer, they release thousands of butterflies.
ReplyDeleteUm, by the way, why don't you get your template straightened out? You must have moved a bit of code so your columns are screwed up. When your site comes up, it looks like there is no content until one scrolls way down the page.
Have you ever tried putting the lobster in the fridge for 30-45 mins first? That makes their systems slow down and they "fall asleep." Also, you probably already know this but lobsters don't scream as they have no vocal chords. The whistling you hear is air escaping.
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