ANIMAL WELFARE: Giant lobster that sparked bidding war saved from pot

A giant 22-pound lobster that may be 100-years-old and affectionately named Dee-Dee was saved from human consumption. A group offered $5,000 to serve the lobster at a banquet, but the New Brunswick fish store that was auctioning the giant crustacean had a change of heart and donated the lobster to the Huntsman Marine Science Centre.

Why someone wants to eat a 100-year-old lobster baffles me. Smaller lobsters (of legal size) taste much better than larger older lobsters. That was one of two secretes I learned from fishers about lobsters while working as a fisheries observer. The second secret was the best way to eat lobster: (1) Chop the meat in chunks, (2) bread the chunks with a good seafood breader like House-Autry Mills, and then (3) lightly deep-fry the breaded chunks.

I have eaten both boiled and deep-fried breaded lobster. The lobster flavor is much stronger in deep-fried breaded lobster than boiled lobster. Certainly, it’s a preference, and some folks may think frying lobster is sacrilegious. The fisherman who shared his lobster cooking secret is from the North Carolina/Virginia area. He married a girl from Maine, and told me of a risky move he made upon meeting her parents. He took the sacred Maine custom of cooking lobster and instead prepared a batch of deep-fried breaded lobster. He claimed the deep-fried breaded lobster was a success amongst the Mainers. From CTV.ca:

The store owner, Denis Breau, said he accepted a $1,000 bid from Vancouver resident Laura-Leah Shaw to save the lobster, despite receiving a $5,000 bid from an Ontario group that wanted Dee-Dee for a banquet.

“Some of my regular customers were starting to tell me I should release him in the water,” Breau told CTV Atlantic of the reason for his decision.

Dee-Dee will go to a conservation group’s aquarium, because releasing him back to the sea would probably be fatal.

. . .

Conservationists hope that Dee-Dee’s case sparks enough interest for the creation of a lobster sanctuary in New Brunswick.

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