Christmas Lobsters

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
My grandmother lived in Bearskin Neck, Massachusets all her life (to 104). When I was a kid and used to visit, she'd send me town to the docks when the lobster men used to come in. They all knew her. She'd tell me to go down and get some "culls". They'd fill up a whole bucket full of 'culls' for me, for free. Culls were lobsters which were missing a claw, or had some other cosmetic defect which wouldn't make them sell. All the lobster men ate culls too.

That was lobster heaven!!

ETA - Back then I just took monster lobster sandwiches for granted. Now, I'd probably sacrifice a limb for one of those things!!!

I never considered that, now that probably does not happen anymore, they sell parts of Lobsters in stores now so there is a market for that kind of stuff.

We used to go down to the fish house when I was a kid and get fish for free that were caught in the net that were not perfect or were a species that could not sell. Sometimes they would charge a couple of bucks for a tub of those fish, right off the boats. Whole fish at the fish house was only a buck a pound back in the seventies, that was for the nice whitefish or trout....no blemishes. The stores sold them for about two bucks a pound.

Surprisingly, around here fish has not gone up that much in the last fifty years... I can go down to the fish house and buy whole cleaned fresh whitefish or trout and salmon for four fifty a pound, but whitefish filet is over eleven a pound. I like to clean fish, I usually buy them whole and freeze them. I need to find out who the new Indian fisherman is here, my old fisherman used to get a buck fifty a pound for whole fish right at the shore.

originally posted by: MerkabaTribeEntity

Some years back I was lucky enough to land a bang-on 9Lb lobster on hook and line next to one of the local marinas, now that thing was a true monster;

The shore-caught record for lobster for the entire British Isles at the time was only two Lb more, at 11Lb, a shore-caught lobster the size of the one I landed was and otherwise still is unheard of in my parts.

WOW dude!! That is a massive lobster! That must have been exiting to catch. Looks like a beautiful clear sunny day as well.

I got two questions:

What do they estimate the age of that sucker was?

How did it taste?

In my experiences, the bigger they are, the tougher they are. Could just be my neck of the woods, though.

edit on 29-12-2019 by KKLOCO because: (no reason given)

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

WOW!! Just WOW!!

I've never seen a lobster that big! That's HUGE! I assume you ate it, right?

Plus, I didn't know you could catch them with a rod & reel. Though, now that you mention it, I have caught some blue crabs that way once a long time ago. I was fishing for something else at the time. People in FL didn't eat blue crabs back then so I just threw them back.

It was huge, lol.

I didn't eat it personally, it was 'gifted' to an associate who turned it into a huge batch of lobster sauce mix for salads 🤷🏻‍♂️

Some would shoot me for that, I'm still on the fence,

It was a lucky score, as it ate into the mackerel strip the lobster literally hooked itself in the mouthparts, pulling it up the wall was a nervous experience as I knew how easy it is to lose a fish off the hook as you bring them up, so as soon as it was level with the pier, I reached under the rails with my foot and kicked it onto the pier,

I'd pulled it up the wall about six to eight feet, I wasn't prepared to lose it in the last couple of feet, lol

a reply to: KKLOCO

I got two questions:

What do they estimate the age of that sucker was?

How did it taste?

In my experiences, the bigger they are, the tougher they are. Could just be my neck of the woods, though.

My apologies for the late reply, I did spend time writing one the same day that I replied to FCD, then my internet died right as I went to post it.

Both a guy who owns a local fishing shop and a mate of mine who works in the fish market said it could have been between 40-50 years old, which didn't make me feel great, but it gets worse,

I later found out that this lobster had been living in the same hole for decades, and had been nicknamed 'Old George' by the local maintainence divers, apparently they used to feed him (I just assumed a lobsters gender, whoops lol) and play with him, how was I supposed to know? Lol

I didn't eat it myself, as mentioned it went to someone else who made a large batch of shredded lobster and sauce salad, exactly for the reason you stated, apparently when they get big and old they're not as tasty and the meat is tough, but nothing a good batch of good-old Rose Marie Sauce can't fix,

I have very mixed feelings about this one, it was the catch of a lifetime, but it was about twenty years older than me, if I knew anything about lobsters at the time, and had any idea of its age, I'd have placed it back in the water, but it is what it is I guess,

No lobster for this veggie girl!
But growing up in an Italian house-hold my mother and family always observed the Feast of the Seven Fishes.

A little background if you didn't know -

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is part of the Italian-American Christmas Eve celebration, although it is not called that in Italy and is not a "feast" in the sense of "holiday," but rather a grand meal. Christmas Eve is a vigil or fasting day, and the abundance of seafood reflects the observance of abstinence from meat until the feast of Christmas Day itself.

Today, the meal typically consists of seven different seafood dishes. The tradition comes from Southern Italy, where it is known simply as La Vigilia (The Vigil) This celebration commemorates the wait, the Vigilia di Natale, for the midnight birth of the baby Jesus. It was introduced in the United States by Southern Italian immigrants in New York City's Little Italy in the late 1800s.

The long tradition of eating seafood on Christmas Eve dates from the Roman Catholic tradition of abstaining from eating meat on the eve of a feast day. As no meat or animal fat could be used on such days, observant Catholics would instead eat fish typically fried in oil.

The meal may include seven, eight, or even nine specific fishes that are considered traditional. However, some Italian-American families have been known to celebrate with nine, eleven or thirteen different seafood dishes. Seven fishes as a fixed concept or name is unknown in Italy itself. In some of the oldest Italian American families, there was no count of the number of fish dishes. Dinner began with whiting in lemon, followed by some version of clams or mussels in spaghetti, baccalà and onward to any number of other fish dishes.

The most famous dish for Southern Italians is baccalà which is salted cod fish. Oh my goodness how my family looked forward to it! My mom would always present it in a platter of her finest china adorned with garlic and olives. The custom of celebrating with a simple fish such as baccalà reflects customs in what were historically impoverished regions of Southern Italy, as well as seasonal factors. Fried smelts, calamari and other types of seafood have been incorporated into the Christmas Eve dinner over the years.

My family feast always began with soup with escarole or as Americans call it, Italian Wedding Soup. Then the linguine and clam sauce comes out followed by a variety of fish dishes. Everything from shrimp, crab and lobster to cod, haddock and flounder. There was also large Italian cold cut and relish platters, a big variety of breads to suck up all of the olive oil and juice lol! My mother also made her lasagna, eggplant parmesan, meatballs and sausage (all in her home made gravy (sauce) of course). All that before gifts, then dessert... holy cow!

There are many hypotheses for what the number seven represents. Seven is the most repeated number in the Bible and appears over 700 times.

One popular theory is the number represents completion, as shown in Genesis 2:2: "By the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work." During the feast of the seven fishes, participants celebrate the completion of God's promise of the Messiah through Jesus.

Other theories include: that the number represents the seven Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church; or it represents the Seven hills of Rome that surround the city. It may represent perfection (the traditional Biblical number for divinity is three, and for Earth is four, and the combination of these numbers, seven, represents God on Earth, or Jesus Christ).

An interesting tradition and one that I miss dearly. It all died with my mom and being Italian she never wrote down recipes!