“All paradise opens! Let me die eating ortolans to the sound of soft music.” - Benjamin Disraeli
In a previous article called "Caribbean Credit Union" I mentioned how Irish people lived and worked in the Caribbean as indentured servants in the 1600s. An indentured servant is slightly different to a slave. The difference being that an indentured servant lives and works in slave like conditions, however, they do so, only for a period of time. Usually 7 to 10 years, and then they are free. They will usually be subject to those conditions as they are paying off a debt that, they would otherwise be unable to pay. Essentially, they work for free, except for room and board until the debt is deemed to be paid off. This happened all over the world and the Irish people were often subjected to it for a variety of different reasons. It is why in the Caribbean, particularly in Montserrat you have Irish surnames like Riley, Sweeney, O'Gara and Kirwan all speaking with a Cork accent. They do (Google or YouTube it) it’s fascinating. Many of the Irish that went or were sent to the Caribbean did so against their will. What has this got to do with lobsters or a food so exclusive and perverse in its preparation that it was made illegal you ask? As well as the Caribbean, the Irish were also indentured servants in America. Specifically, North America in what is now Boston Massachusetts.
In the 17th century Ireland was a pretty grim place to live, it was being viciously colonized by the English and it was immediately prior to the Penal Laws being enforced. It was a horrible place to be and most Irish people wanted a way out. They were given this when an opportunity arose to travel to the colonies the British had created in North America. Because of the situation in Ireland at the time, the Irish people had no money. Britain had colonized North America and taken the land away from the native American people. In doing so, they set up colonies. In order for these colonies to be built, to function post-production and for the colonizers to maximise profits the British needed free labour. In this case, the Irish volunteered to go, they were not forcibly sent. The British paid for their passage to the colonies in exchange for their labour. This debt would be paid off over the course of between 7-10 years. Indentured servant contracts were drawn up and the Irish would have agreed to this stipulation in order to escape the incredibly harsh conditions in Ireland at the time.
Even though their labour was free, the British had to feed all the workers. The colony in Massachusetts was very quickly filled by Irish indentured servants all working 16 hour days. The British in order to maximise profits wanted to feed the workers with the cheapest, most abundant and readily available food possible. Which in Massachusetts was lobster. The colony was located on a bay and enormous heaps of lobster would wash up on the bay every day. Lobsters in the 1600s had been used prior to colonization, by the Native Americans as fertilizer. The British in the 1600s viewed lobster as a disgusting food that only vermin ate. The name lobster comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning spider. As well as this, the British running the colony were staunchly Protestant. The Irish were Catholic, this meant that the Irish were hated and on the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder. Meaning, the British were more than happy to serve lobster to them. The British didn't eat lobster except when absolutely necessary as life on the colonies was difficult and sometimes food ran out. Then and only then would they eat it, instead of starving. They viewed it as beneath them and instead ate, lamb, steak and vegetables that they grew on site at the colony. They Irish were not fed anything else, simply lobster. In fact, they were fed so much of it, that a group of the Irish assembled, and organized a rebellion. With the sole purpose of bringing attention to the fact, they no longer wanted lobster.
An agreement was reached and a piece of legislation was put together that stated the Irish people could not be served lobster, more than three times a week and that their diet had to be supplemented by other foods. We associate lobster with being a beautiful and refined foodstuff so why was it considered disgusting at the time? One theory is that people were eating dead lobster. It was washing up on the beach dead. The British were collecting it in the 100s and 1000s and cooking it after it had died. Somewhere along the line someone realised that if you boiled it alive, the meat had a different flavour and this is when the meat was considered tasty and what we associate the meat to taste like today. However, despite the realization that by cooking it alive made it taste better, it was still considered a shameful food. It was considered embarrassing to eat it and only the poorest of the poor like indentured servants would eat it. This continued to be the case for 100s of years. The British considered it an insect of the sea and a quote from the time states "Lobster shells about a house are looked upon as signs of poverty and degradation." which is very telling.
So how did lobster go from being viewed in this manner with such an appalling reputation in the 17th to becoming the direct opposite and becoming a signifier of class and sophistication in the 21st? Because we associate lobster as a fine dining experience, it is only served in the most highly regarded restaurants, it tastes beautiful and it is at times exorbitantly expensive. There is often a fanfare aspect to it, where in which the customer, views live lobsters in a tank and they choose the lobster they would like killed and prepared for their meal. It is for this reason it’s so expensive, not for any exclusivity reason, or because of scarcity. Usually it is scarcity that makes something expensive, gold, diamonds, platinum or bitcoin for example. The less there is of something the more expensive it becomes. That is basic economics. However, we cannot say any of those things about lobster. We have loads of it. There are no supply issues. It is the manufactured exclusivity of lobster and the ritual of suffering that the animal endures in order for us to eat it that makes it seem exclusive and give it an illusion of grandeur.
For example, we view foie gras and veal in the same manner. When we hear those names, we think, expensive, we think classy, we think sophistication. But, what do they all have in common? The cruel suffering that the animal goes through so that it is prepared for our meal. Foie gras for example, is the product of force feeding a goose. The goose is fed so much grain against its will that it becomes so fat it can no longer move. It is tied down and fed more until its liver develops a fatty tissue on it. The goose goes through extreme torture in order for the liver to develop this extra layer which is deemed to make the liver more succulent. It is then killed and the liver is removed and served as a fatty delicacy.
Veal, is similar. Bob veal for example is the meat of a calf that is slaughtered from anything between a couple of hours to 4 weeks old because the meat hasn’t had a chance to mature and is therefore redder, softer and tastier. Veal can come from older calves too and they are often born and raised in grow farms where they are chained together by the neck with no room to exercise because exercise toughens the meat. These calves too are killed between 6 and 8 months old. Possibly the most perverse and cruel example of this is the ortolan bird. Ortolan is the most expensive and exclusive food you can buy. So cruel is its production that has now been made illegal. An ortolan is a tiny African songbird. It flies all over Europe. It is smaller than a plum. When an ortolan is caught it is either blindfolded or it is kept in a small cage in a dark room. No light is allowed enter. The psychological torture the bird endures because it is forced to be blind forces it to overeat. It then gorges itself on figs and grain as a coping mechanism. When it is fat enough, they drown the ortolan in brandy. Then, it is plucked and roasted in an oven. When an ortolan is served in a restaurant, the person that buys it as a meal, has to cover his/her face with a white veil. This is known as an ortolan veil. The purpose is so that no one else can see you eat the bird and because the meal is considered such a delicacy the aim is to focus all of your senses on the flavours as well as keeping the aromas inside the veil so that you can appreciate them thoroughly. You eat the bird whole, bones included. It is placed in your mouth in its entirety. The veil also serves as a type of protection to stop bones coming out of your mouth when you chew.
This is the most expensive meal that was possible to purchase until it was made illegal. Again, there isn’t a shortage of ortolan birds. The showmanship and exclusivity is created around its preparation and the cruelty that the animal underwent in order for you to enjoy it as a meal. This same exclusivity is manufactured around lobster by allowing you to choose it in a restaurant and having that specific one you chose, boiled there on the spot for you. The exclusivity and cruelty in its preparation is what tricks the patron into believing that this is a special item and so therefore, it should be expensive. Nothing else and certainly not that lobster is rare because it is not.