Growing up, there were two things I could count on happening every year:
1) The brown paper and twine-wrapped shoebox of "irregular" Ganong chocolates purchased for Christmas at the Main street Irving. It was always a gamble. Sometimes, you got lucky, and the box would be filled with dented caramels, coconut cups and buttercreams. Sometimes, you got unlucky, and wound up with a baseball-sized lump of orange creams and a leaky, sticky mass of crushed cherry chocolates. 5lbs of chocolate, heaped unceremoniously in a box. Good luck!
2) A lobster feed, usually in July. I never really 'got' lobster as a kid. I really enjoyed setting them up for races on the kitchen floor, determining who was going to land in the pot first (the loser, naturally). I really, really enjoyed tossing them into the giant pot reserved strictly for the yearly lobster boil. But eating them was, as far as I could tell, a lot of work with little reward. It seemed to me that lobster was little more than a butter-delivery system, and I always ended up having a peanut butter sandwich after a lobster dinner because I could never get enough to eat otherwise.
I never complained about the lack of food though, because my my selfless and generous mother always, ALWAYS gave me ALL the legs. They were, according to her, the best part, and they were just for me. I would intensely suck and work away at the legs while my mother would very slowly nibble on the claws. If I was particularly hungry, sometimes she'd give me a thumb. And then, because "raccoons would just get into the bags if we put the shells out in the trash before garbage day", my mother would get up and put them in the fridge.
If you've ever had lobster, you're probably asking yourself, "Wait, wait! Back up! What about the tails?"
Yes. What ABOUT the tails?
Well, according to my mother, the tails were the opposite of the legs. They were not just the worst part of the lobster, but they were actually UNPLEASANT to eat. She often backed up this argument with the following example: "Of COURSE McDonald's has the McLobster*. It's made with TAIL MEAT. Like how the McNuggets are all ground up leftover stuff..."
And then she'd pull a dismissive face.
And then she'd throw the shells into the fridge.
And later, while we slept, she ate lobster tails. Plural.
I didn't figure this out until I was 28. It was a revelation. I still start with the legs, though.
(*yes, there is such a thing as McLobster in the Maritime provinces. i know. seriously.)
My parents did the same thing to me - convinced me that the little legs were the best part of the lobster. I was a dumb kid.
ReplyDeleteMy dad remembers having some students back in the 60s who were kids of fishermen who talked about trading their lobster for PB&J sandwiches at school because only the poor kids had lobster for lunch.
Oh, and I loved the Ganong chocolate surprise bags.
i was a really dumb kid. and when it came to lobster, i stayed dumb for a long time. sigh.
ReplyDeletei know several people who used lobster as fertilizer for their gardens. whole, ground up lobster. people are idiots.
and the ganong boxes were so thrilling for me. one year, i saved up some money and bought one all for myself. i nearly exploded on the ride home, dying to open it. it was half-dipped almonds and a lot of orange creams. i cried.