RED AS A LOBSTER

I suppose I've always seen the sad looking live lobsters packed in the small grocery store tank - blue bands on their claws, all piled on top of one another, just waiting for someone to pick them out for their culinary fate... and they're brown, nothing really stands out about their color.

And I suppose I've also seen the healthy looking, vibrantly red lobster on a plate (mostly in commercials or print ads) appearing to be appetizing and delicious and enjoyable.

But I've never seemed to put the two together... until recently, having experienced my first lobster dinner.

The water in the giant pot almost already boiling over, the brownish lobster alive and sometimes kickin' - or at least squirming a bit - dunked in head first (which kills them almost instantly), the truly amazing and almost instantaneous color change to sunburnt red... the steaming shell when they're removed and piled high on a serving platter, the smell of not-quite-ocean and not-quite-not-ocean, the eyes void of life but still appearing in all other form (like the crab before you eat it) like the animal you don't want to accidently step on when you're waist deep in the sea... the utensil that's similar to a nutcracker placed next to your fork and knife, the dish of warm melted butter in front of you, the anticipation... and then learning how to break off the claws, and then watching as someone teaches you to crack them open, and then tentitavely taking your first bite (thoroughly drenched in that delicious melted butter because you assume that will make almost anything taste better)... and then being plesantly surpised by the sweetness of the meat in the claws, and the toughness of the tail meat, and knowing that although you may not "crave" lobster again anytime soon, you'd definitely eat it if it was offered.

And the one lingering question that I don't know if I'll ever get an answer to: who WAS that first brave soul that said to himself, "I wonder if this spiny, hard-shelled creature with giant pinching claws is edible? Let's find out..."