IN LOVE WITH THE LOBSTER

Source: http://www.speakup.com.br

Source of the picuture: http://ogunquitlobsterpound.com

Driving along the New England coast in Summer, you will see many “lobster shacks” or “lobster pounds.” The coast of Maine (with Nova Scotia in Canada) is the best place to eat lobster in North America Maine’s clean cold waters have a multitude of nutrients, and the lobstermen fish responsibly. The restaurants usually have a big tanks with cold water which contains various lobsters walking around at the bottom of the tank. The lobster’s claws are tied together so they don’t hurt each other – or the restaurant personnel. The claws also have the most succulent meat! Diners choose the animal they want to eat – maybe the lobster with the most spectacular colour or the most vivacious temperament. The victim is fished out, weighed, cooked –and shortly afterwards it is on the table. Fast food…as long as you know how to eat it of course!

PRISON FOOD!

Just imagine: in the past, lobster were used as fertilizers or fed to prisoners. Today, they are very expensive. One problem is that there are not so many of them around anymore.

Lobsters are omnivores and can live up to a hundred, but mortality is high. Only to a hundred eggs becomes a lobster that can legally be caught. Lobsters are well protected by their hard carapace as they grow. They are very vulnerable to predators.

LOBSTERS IN LITERATURE

Meanwhile, lobsters have also entered popular culture. As the distinguished writers D.H Lawrence once said: “Europe’s the mayonnaise, but America supplies the good old lobster.” Surrealist artist Salvador Dali made a sculpture “Lobster Telephone.”  As seafood, lobster are supposed to be good for your love life. The B52s first single, in 1978, was “Rock Lobster.” And if you spend too much time in the sun this summer, you might become lobstered!

INTERVIEW

Language level: B2 upper intermediate 

Speaker: Chuck Rolando

Standard: American accent

DOWN MAINE

One of the many attractions of the State of Maine in New England is the delicious lobster meat that you can eat in restaurant, all along the coast. Bill Hancock runs Maine’s oldest lobster restaurant, the Ogunquit Lobster Pound, which first opened for business in 1931. As he explains, today lobster is considered an expensive delicacy, but that wasn’t always the case:

Bill Hancock:

Standard: American accent

Lobsters have been around for a long time. And in the old days there were so many of them that you could literally walk down to the beach at low tide and picked them up. And they were considered a poor man’s’ meal because nobody really wanted to eat them and you couldn’t afford steak, so you would eat lobster.

They used to serve them in prisons all the time. They used to use them for fertilizer. And now it’s one of the most expensive things you can go buy in a restaurant, so, you know, you figure it out!