- By Bea Davis
- March 24, 2020
livescience.com
When someone mentions lobster, you automatically think, "we are eating good tonight!" Lobster is known to be an expensive item on the menu and no one questions the price unless its cheap. Then it is considered fishy! What consumers don't realize is how lobster was once considered " peasant food" or the "poor man's protein" and my favorite, "the cockroach of the sea". At one point, it was the standard diet of prisoners because it was so inexpensive! In the colonial times, lobster would be washed ashore in 2 foot high walls where everyone can take as many as the please. Native Americans used lobster as fish bate and fertilizer. The question is how did it go from one extreme to another? Watch these YouTube videos below. Each video has a unique perspective on the topic and discuss different details on how the history of the lobster has controlled our stomachs and wallets. So the next time you eat lobster, it will taste much better because of the knowledge you have learned!
YouTube Video Links:
Why Were Lobsters Once Prison Food? - The Infographics Show According to The Marshall Project, a nonprofit publication that covers the criminal-justice system in the US, the budget per meal in jails and prisons in the United States is as little as $0.56. An example of a meal from a state prison might be something like 2 to 3 ounces of meat or meat byproduct, half a cup of vegetables, three-quarters of a cup of a starch, and three-quarters of a cup of salad with dressing. That doesn’t sound too bad but then on such a low budget the prison kitchen is never going to be serving up a Masterchef meal. However, there was a time when some items on the prison menu looked more like what you would see on a 5-star restaurant menu. And that’s what we’ll be looking at today, in this episode of The Infographics Show: Why were lobsters once gruel and prison food?
Why is Lobster so Expensive? - Business Insider
Lobster went from prison food to a well-known delicacy. Seafood was left out of rationed foods during WWII, and with the advent of railway transportation, lobster became known as an exotic delicacy.
This History of Lobster in America - Now This News
Lobster used to be the least classy food in America.