Would you eat a 100-year-old critter?

Mmmmmmmmm ... 100-year-old lobster ...
By MIKE ARGENTO

Apr 13, 2006 —

A topic of huge importance has been debated at dinner tables, at coffee shops, in chat rooms and via e-mail over the past week or so.

It's been hashed over, leading to pointed arguments, which have created rifts where none existed previously. It's been divisive and largely ideological in nature.

We're not talking about whether Tom DeLay is a crook, or whether President Dubya authorized the leaking of classified information for political gain, or whether we should nuke Iran. Most sane people agree on those things.

No, what we're talking about is whether it is proper to eat a 100-year-old critter.

Specifically, we're talking about whether it's OK to eat the lobster formerly known as Steve or Tasty, a 21-pound behemoth of the sea that, until he met his untimely demise drenched in drawn butter, resided at Don's Seafood in the Manchester Crossings shopping center.

The shop's proprietor, Don Eisenhour, reported receiving numerous phone calls from people who believed Steve/Tasty should be spared the steamer and set free to roam the oceans or pastures or old lobster homes or wherever it is elderly lobsters live. He wondered, "Does Red Lobster get these calls?"

Eisenhour was perplexed. He's in the business of selling fish to people to eat and people like eating big lobsters. A 21-pound lobster is, well, pretty big.

Of course, the ethical quandary of eating something that has occupied the planet since the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the great San Francisco earthquake and, coincidentally, passage of the Meat Inspection Act is something of a dilemma to those who don't believe in eating old things.

Is it right to eat something that's 100 years old?

Shouldn't Steve/Tasty be permitted to live out what years he has remaining in relative dignity?

What does 100-year-old lobster taste like?

These are big questions, fraught with large issues and ideas and such.

So I contacted Dr. I.M. Kooky at the Slats Grobnick Institute for Experts on Lots of Things. (I apologize for the gratuitous Royko reference.)

Dr. Kooky, so is it OK to eat a 100-year-old lobster?

"Before I answer your question, this is a problem that has plagued this great nation in the past and has never fully been answered."

Excuse me?

"Last year, in Pittsburgh, a seafood shop got hold of a 22-pound lobster named Bubba, also believed to be 100 years old, and its capture and display led to a similar debate."

And how'd that go?

"Well, we heard from both PETAs, and it got ugly."

Both PETAs? I thought there was only one.

"Oh, no, not at all. You have the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who believe that humans shouldn't eat animals and who frequently protest fur by having naked women demonstrate in public. I tend to disagree with the not-eating-animals part, but naked women in public, I can get behind that."

OK, and the other PETA?

"That would be the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals."

So what happened to Bubba?

"He died before anybody decided what to do with him. A terrible tragedy. He was survived by 7,892 offspring and a dozen people waiting in line at the Red Lobster."

Now, how about Steve/Tasty? Just how good would a 100-year-old lobster be?

"This is a common misperception. In lobster years, he was ... carry the one ... divide by seven ... the square root of the constant ... really old. But 100 years in lobster years is like, well, 99 in human terms."

Did you just make that up?

"Yeah. So?"

A lot of people are concerned about the ethics of eating a lobster that witnessed a century of life. Is that a valid concern?

"Look at what he witnessed. He's essentially a huge sea cockroach, a bottom-feeder living among scum on the bottom of the ocean - SpongeBob and Tom DeLay and that guy from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," James Mason. His 100 years on this planet were spent in the deepest, darkest part of the ocean."

But still, he was a century old.

"I'll concede that that's really old. But think about it. He probably can't see too well, can't hear too well, can't remember things too well. He's probably just a shell of his former self."

Ethics aside, just how good would 100-year-old lobster be?

"Get it? Shell of his former self?"

I got it. I was ignoring it. Anyway, how would 100-year-old lobster taste?

"Here's the part that nobody's talked about. Why would you want to eat 100-year-old lobster? It's got to be all stringy and tough. Back when the Donner party was snowbound in the Sierras, did they eat the old folks? No. The old folks were way too tough and kept complaining that Johnny was undercooked. So the short answer is, not so good. And that's not even considering the biblical ramifications."

Biblical ramifications? Like do unto others ...

"No, I'm talking Old Testament. Leviticus says, 'These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you.'"

So what do you think they should have done with Steve/Tasty?

"I don't know. Now, I have a question for you: You wouldn't happened to have any drawn butter on you?"

Mike Argento, whose column appears Mondays and Thursdays in Living and Sundays in Viewpoints, can be reached at 771-2046 or at mike@ydr.com.