This book takes us on a journey through the history, biology, cuisine and culture of lobsters, and their economic and environmental status worldwide. Richard J. King describes how the lobster is an international commodity, and how the American lobster fishery is arguably one of the last healthy wild fisheries left on Earth. He describes the evolution of technologies to capture these creatures, and addresses the ethics of boiling them alive. King also explores the salacious lobster palaces of the 1920s, as well as the animal's thousand-year status as an aphrodisiac, and how it has inspired numerous artists, writers and thinkers including Aristotle, Dickens, Thoreau, Dal and Woody Allen.
Richard J. King is Lecturer in Literature of the Sea at the Maritime Studies Program of Williams College and Mystic Seaport, Connecticut. He has written widely on maritime culture and literature
'These are food memoirs, salacious and exotic, colorful, powdered, sweet, greasy and globe-trotting ... sharp and speedy little reads, spotted with off-kilter illustrations' - Chicago Tribune 'These little morsels of books are part of a delightful and new imprint known as the Edible series ... The history of each foodstuff is set out compactly and with erudition ... in each case, it's when the history moves closer to current day that revelation and delight meet.' - Diplomat magazine