Bring Out the Can of Raid

Every Fourth of July we meet and have one of those pre-made clam bakes you can order from most seafood stores. It's not bad really, they pack it full with all you need, you add water/beer and fire up for thirty minutes and then you're done.

For some reason we've always had the ones created with a Portuguese twist, it's filled with chorizo. Along with it is the lobster, steamers, corn, mussels and red potatoes which is pretty standard.

I never had lobster until I was thirty and here's why. When our family went to the beaches down in South Kingston, we would end the day in Galilee to poke around and eat at the Portside Restaurant. Today the Portside would make me vomit with it's dishwater chowder, but that's another story.

Each time we ended up there, my Dad would order the boiled lobster. I'd get the scallops prepared in whatever way I was feeling that night. So, the waitress would finally come with our order and I'd see her lay down in front of my Dad, the ugliest insect you could imagine, a red lobster.

By the time I was twelve I've seen a lot of those lobsters, alive or cooked and they looked like freaks of nature. Or, they reminded me of the world's largest evil looking spiders. Those spindly legs with two huge weapons in front and antenna just proved to me they meant me harm. I couldn't understand my Dad's reaction to eating them, how could anything like that taste good? To top it off as well, you had to tear it apart, smash it open in order to get at the “meat” inside. Of course it was a GIANT INSECT, all insects have an exoskeleton, just like this lobster had.

In my 20's, when we had some spending money from our first jobs, we'd all go out to eat at times and I'd see my friends order these repulsive varmints. Again, I'd hear them “ooohing and ahhing” over the taste. “How come you never get a lobster Ron?” I'd always get asked. I would say I was interested in something else and they retorted that nothing was better than a lobster.

Years passed and I finally had one, back in 1994.

I was at Johnson & Wales culinary division when this Austrian Chef was showing us how to prepare these things. Lobster Thermidor, Lobster Newburg, Baked Stuffed Lobster with Alaskan King Crab, Lobster Fra Diablo and just plain steamed. We had about forty of these crickets cooked up and I decided, “I'm going to have one just to find out what the excitement is all about.”

I chose the simplest, the steamed lobster. I sat down, quietly busted mine open as I didn't want to show my virginity on “how do you eat this thing” at my age then. I dipped the claw meat into the butter and popped it into my mouth, waiting to see Jesus.

I chewed, noticed a slight ocean flavor and...and...nothing.

“This is it? I thought to myself. “This is what they go ga-ga for?”

I was NOT impressed. We had an Austrian Chef from the Tyrol skiing region who managed the best hotels in Innsbruck cook these. If a competent chef, who prepared this, can't make me see the Promised Land as I ate this, then lobster was waaay over rated. It struck me as pedestrian.

I've ordered them several times after in various ways and each time my reaction was pretty much the same...'Yeah, this is lobster...I guess it's alright.”

When it comes to seafood, nothing can beat out scallops, fried ones at that too. If you want to see someone in near ecstasy, watch me eat scallops. It's too bad they are so small and it takes a ton of work to get them from the ocean to my plate, but then again, so are diamonds. To me, both are rare and take a bit of work to bring out the beauty.

Now after writing this, I want scallops, lots of them.