A Recipe for Lobster Death

I remember leaning against the lobster case, heart racing, and muttering to Stephanie, “God, I think I need a cigarette.” The seafood guy, Joseph, had after all begun to make this simple task into such a production that we couldn’t help think we had to be doing something wrong.

Then Stephanie disappeared and I found myself trying to orchestrate the purchase. I am alone, jittery, against the fluorescent reflection of the tank’s water. Joseph, the seafood guy at Ralph’s, is extremely unhelpful, even suspicious that we’re trying to get three lobsters without paying for them. But he has so far counseled us on how to preserve our victims for the two hour trip from San Diego to El Centro, California.

“You can lay them on ice, and they’ll start to slow down, but they’ll stay alive,” he says. “It’s good to keep them wet.” He points us toward the styrofoam ice chests. I grab one and bring it back to the counter. I feel a bit high, and I am talking fast.

“So how ’bout we fill this with water and put them in here?”

“Mmmm, not sure I can do that for you. You need salt water, you see, and we only have fresh water.” I eye the massive salt water tank next to him.

“Oh no,” he says, shaking his head. “I can’t give you any of this water. That’s the lobster water.”

My head is spinning. I want to buy the lobsters and drive them two hours east, but I don’t want to see them. I’m still traumatized from the live crabs Alisa cooked a couple weeks ago. The sad, desperate clacking of their claws as they sat in the sink, waiting for the pot, now ricochets in my ears. It’s New Year’s Day and they say it is good luck to eat seafood but to me it feels like we’re opening the New Year with a dose of bad, murderous karma. And it’s a door we’ve lodged open and can’t get to shut again.

Stephanie reappears by my side, confused as to why we don’t yet have three lobsters in our possession. She doesn’t want to see them either.

“We wrap them in wet newspaper when we take them out of the tank,” Joseph volunteers.

“Great,” Stephanie says. “Can you wrap them in newspaper for us? We’ll go get ice.”

He hems and haws, says, “I’ve never had anyone ask me to do all this.”

I grab the side of the tank and exclaim, “God, I need a cigarette.”

Joseph is not calming my nerves. He is prolonging the process, and in turn, I am becoming increasingly shaky. He is treating us as if we are about to do something very bad, and he does not want to be an accomplice. I can’t tell Stephanie about the slowly growing desire to vomit coming from my stomach. My hesitancy will only increase her apprehension. She’s not sure either. She’s used to buying frozen lobster, but we’ve been unable to find any.

We could easily talk each other out of the lobster demise, but we, curiously, do not. Much like a drug trip or a baby, we are facing irreversible actions and we are just trying to get to the point where we can no longer change our minds. If we could only get the lobsters, we will have committed to their sure demise four hours later.

We are humane people, Stephanie and I, but we are also Capricorns. Right now, we are committed to lobster dinner. The scallop alternative just seems weak, no trouble. Scallops would require no work, no adventure, and no confrontation with the plight and nature of an omnivorous diet. We want to buy three lobsters, we tell the seafood guy, but we don’t want to touch them.

“Well, I’m not sure if I can do that for you ladies,” he says. “I have to bag them and you have to pay for them.” He suggests if we want to do something “out of the ordinary,” we need to get a manager involved.

Stephanie and I both wish we could shoot daggers from our eyes. We stumble off to the front of the store and wait in line for the manager. I still think a beer and cigarette would solve this tremulous sensation, until Steph nearly knocks it over the edge. She is grasping the white styrofoam lid close to her chest, hunched slightly. She places her hand on my forearm, and lowers her voice. “It feels like we’re about to commit murder.”

I have to be strong. I tell her to call Paul, who is waiting for us in El Centro. He grew up on a farm.  He’s over that whole confrontation with the omnivore’s diet.

He is the strength we need. He says, “What do you think I’ll say? I kill goats for a living. Of course you should get the lobsters.” Paul will later photograph each of them, with knife and fork in pincher claws, before they go into the pot. When that eventually happens, Stephanie and I protest loudly, screech, leave the room. At that point, I even cry a little.

Curiously, animals look like animals, and then animals look like food. The Normans and the Brits were smart to give them one name live, and one name prepared, so that we call pigs “swine” when they’re running around the farm, and “pork” when they sit in a nice fennel-fig reduction on our plates. In the Middle Ages this was, of course, simply a function of wealth. The poor Britons tended the food the rich Normans then ate, and this is why our live animals bear Germanic names — sheep, lamb, deer — while our food bears the French appellation — mutton, veal, venison.

The live lobsters, which even in memory make me teary eyed, were cute and animated, resembling slightly a cat caught in the unwanted grip of a human, extending themselves like a professional diver. But once cooked, the lobsters became that familiar bright orange, slightly fluorescent with a vague neoprene sheen. I pushed through the small chunk in my throat and began to crack at the shell with the Man Tools. (On the farm, there ain’t no thing like a set of shellfish forks.)

From Lobster

I dipped the massive chunks of rich tail flesh into a lemon-dill butter, and marveled at the sweetness that comes from a life of saltwater brining. We drank mini-Coronitas and forgot the Sweet Potato Cornbread in our haste to devour our New Year’s meal. Only at the end did we remember to cleanse the palate with small helpings of salad, also dressed in a simple lemon dill vinaigrette.

From Lobster

I couldn’t look the things, dead or alive, in the eye, and I left the female lobster with roe for Paul, but other than that, the meal went without a hitch. Having been a vegetarian for ten years, I can say that I’ve known the ways of soy, and nothing compares to the sweet visceral satisfaction of filling your body with the protein of animal meat.