rue-madame's Diaryland
Diary
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The politics of food
To celebrate our being outbid on the condo, we ate lobster for dinner. They were on sale at the supermarket: $5.99/lb for lobsters ranging from 1 to 1 1/4 lbs. Since I didn�t want to reenact that scene from Annie Hall, we opted to have them steamed before we brought them home. Terence was a little bit disappointed, I think. He wanted to take off their handcuffs (�to give �em a fighting chance!�), put them in a pot and listen to them scream. Boys. While standing at the lobster counter, some Connecticut natives/lifers told us that lobsters don�t scream. What you think are screams is actually steam escaping from the shells. That makes me feel better? The lobster was a lot tastier than the lobster we had at a nearby restaurant (where it was served with a salad and a dry baked potato.) 
I must confess, though, that I�m not sold on the steamed lobster. I just don�t think steaming renders the best texture. While I�m at it, I should just add insult to New England injury and state that lobster is not ALL THAT. I�ll take Dungeness crab any day�better flavor, better texture. I know, I know: apples and oranges. What I especially object to is this American way of eating lobster. It�s sort of the way Americans eat steak, as well. One big slab of something on a plate with no room for anything else. Side dishes are satellites to the meat/seafood event. It must be the French in me that finds eating this way barbaric. Why wouldn�t you want everything on the plate to be working together? Shouldn�t Americans be all about the Democratic plate of food, where everything touches and e pluribus unum and all that? This eating things from separate plates seems like one disjointed and isolationist meal philosophy. Food for thought. It is now surgery minus one, and I am on an all clear liquid/food diet today. It�s no wonder I�ve got food on the brain.
9:17 a.m. - 2004-08-04
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
previous - next
|
