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Thursday, October 20, 2011

The Last Time I Saw Lobster: A Tale of Prince Edward Island



The last time I saw lobster - and I think it very well may have been the very last time... I often exaggerate for some sort of effect or another, but I think this time was indeed the last - was in Windsor, Ontario about twelve to fifteen years ago. We were having dinner with friends and the family of my Philosophy mentor, Dr. Stanley Cunningham, whose book about Albert the Great and Moral Agency I am reading.

There was a special on for P.E.I. (Prince Edward Island) lobsters; it was something incredible like 7 dollars Canadian for a lobster, so we all went to chow down.
The lobster was very good.
There was the usual desultory talk about crustaceans: how expensive they were, how one hates to spend a  lot of money on a prime bit of sea creature, only to take it home and discover upon cooking it that it is rather, bland, metallic-tasting, or not to one's liking.
I told my usual tale about how lemon-pepper tastes like copper pennies to me, and that most lobsters of my childhood - caught, frozen, and shipped to the Midwest - had a bit of the cuprous about them. Of course, everyone asked how I knew what pennies tasted like... which is really an elitist type question, implying as it does that they never had pennies in their mouths when they were kids!

This lobster was excellent.
So I had seconds. One or two others did also.
Then it was time for dessert. The waitstaff rolled out a cart of sugar plums and whatnots, and each person chose their sweet and coffee'd up.
Then she came to me.
"I think I'll have another lobster for dessert."... and I did.
It was a good time. It was when P.E.I. did not have a bridge yet. It was all Marilla and Cuthbert and Anne Shirley... and not a bit of Mrs. Blewett.
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