Food: A Love Story Read Online Free Page B

its natural form. Are those the things that stick to the side of the aquarium? Who knows? The French may refer to seafood as the “fruit of the sea,” and scientists may call shellfish “crustaceans,” but to me they are creepy-crawly giant insects on the bottom of the ocean. I have a rule that if food looks like something that would crawl out from under a refrigerator, I don’t put it in my mouth. If you like shellfish, do me a favor: next time you see a really big cockroach, just tell yourself, “If that could swim, I’d eat it.” I always imagine fish in the ocean swimming along, looking down at the ocean floor, seeing shellfish and thinking, We have to get an exterminator up in here. There is a reason why Red Lobster and exterminators have the same image on their signs. Shellfish are bugs. They have a shell like a bug. They have tons of spindly legs and crawl around like bugs (I have a four-leg maximum on things I’ll eat). They even have antennae like, well, like monsters, frankly. Shellfish are probably monsters. You don’t have to watch any sci-fi movie from the ’60s to understand my point. Consider the following: If you went home and saw a chicken in your house, you’d think, Why is there a chicken in my house? If you saw a lobster in your house, you’d think, We have to move. This is because there is not a nickel’s worth of difference between a lobster and a giant scorpion.
    New England: Lobster
    “Lobstah!” Finding lobster on the menu is fancy. It is rare and pricey. “Oooh, they have lobster.” Lobster is so special, restaurants go so far as to have tanks of live lobsters with rubberbands on the claws. The lobsters always seem to be peering out with a curious expression.
LOBSTER: What are you doing here?
PATRON: I’m going to eat you.
LOBSTER: Ha, ha. Yeah, right. Hey, Harvey, this guy thinks he’s going to eat … Harvey? Where’s Harvey?
    In some lobster tank restaurants, diners can choose their own lobster. I always found this strange. “Um, I guess I’ll take that one that is really struggling with the rubber bands. He seems rather appealing. Why don’t we boil him to death?” I’m always perplexed why I’m involved in the decision process. I wanted to have dinner, not play executioner.
    All this ritual that I imagine makes PETA members squirm is supposedly justified, given everyone’s love of lobster. And people do love lobster. For many, it just doesn’t get better than lobster. “I love lobster!” I usually nod in agreement and say, “I like butter too.” Really, butter is what makes lobster so good. Each bite of lobster is usually submerged in a small bowl of paradise, also known as butter.
GUY 1: How can I eat three sticks of butter?
GUY 2: Well, I found this giant swimming sea scorpion. Maybe if we boil it to death …
    Drawing my inspiration from Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins , I think it really comes down to “a spoonful of butter helps the bug meat go down.” In, of course, “the most delightful way.”
    Even the experience of ordering lobster contributes to its mystique and popularity. Lobster is often listed on the menu as“Market Price,” which is code for “you can’t afford it.” The “market” always seems to be the most expensive market in the area. Lobster also is a unique food that requires its own wardrobe, the lobster bib, which indicates not only that consuming lobster is messy, but also that people don’t mind looking like a toddler while they do it. A nutcracker is conveniently provided to the lobster connoisseur so that those who dare seek it out may earn the bounty of the lobster meat in the claw. A lobster knife is used to expertly dissect the tail. The ultimate entrée in some steakhouses is often lobster tail served alongside a steak. Yes, somehow the tail of a giant scorpion that can survive in saltwater is the gold standard of accompaniment to a steak. I feel that in life these two animals would have been enemies, but there they are