The Lobster Diaries: Ode to Betsy

It was a sad day in Seafood. Betty/Betsy, our yet largest lobster, died. Well, she was cooked. We had Betty for at least a week, I think two maybe. She came to us weighing four pounds and left a half pound heavier. This day was hardest for George who loves all animals and particularly loved Betsy. He named her, took her out and held her every day, weighed her and celebrated her growth every day. Betsy was a $50 lobster, but to George she was priceless (hence, he could not buy her). While the other lobsters ate each other, Betty stood alone - the biggest and strongest in the tank. And George was working Seafood when a man came. He asked the sobering question: "Ya got any big ones?"

Ah, Betsy, today your journey reached its destination. After all, a lobster in the tank at Shaw's has an inescapable fate. Like us, they must die. Some perish in the tank - perhaps they understand their coming steaming and lose their will to live. Some are eaten by the other lobsters (yes, these are cannibalistic creatures when in a tank starving to death. Like the climbers in the movie "Alive," they too reach a last resort. Which begs the question, Is there a such thing as 'mad lobster disease'?) And some are killed by us.

It's a very strange experience, cooking a lobster. The customer points to the chosen one (or two or more) and we plunge into the tank after it/them. They swim away in vain - it is a tank afterall, not the ocean. Then they are weighed, one at a time. Some attempt suicide off the edge of the scale, but we're ready and none have been successful. They are then transferred onto the cutting board on the counter. No, we do not torture them, cutting their legs off or anything. It's just a transition point. On the counter they are watched carefully - second suicide attempts are made there. The steaming dish is filled with a bit of water and placed in the oven. Then it's swim time. Or wading time - the water's not very deep. In go the lobsters, and a lid is placed on the dish. The oven door closes. The heat is turned on. The lobsters go from their natural brownish color to a bright red. A very bright red. Blood red. No, brighter.

Betsy weighed 4.5 pounds. She didn't fight her destiny. Her usual feistiness showed itself not. Stoically, she staid the scale. She held her head high as George carried her to the cutting board. She moved not as he filled the water dish, and placed her inside. He closed the lid. Closed the oven door. And Betsy's lovely eyes froze still, her shell became neon. She left us --- in the way only a steamed lobster can: hidden behind the thick paper of a "cooked foods" carrybag.

She is dead and by now digested, but not forgotten. Betsy, you lived a good life, you fought the fight, you finished well. Rest in peace, in pieces below.