The Lobster Is A Local Delicacy

At the time when North America received its first European settlers, the lobster population was plentiful. They would often wash up on shore and form piles up to two feet high. Since they were so abundant and easy to harvest, lobster became a staple meal for poor families near the coastline. Slowly but surely over the centuries, disdain for lobster declined, and so it was that what was once a poor man's chicken eventually became a rich man's prize.

By the 1840s, commercial fisheries were big business in Maine due to the invention of the lobster trap. They catered to a public that couldn't get enough and shipments soon were sent throughout the globe. Quicker land transport brought the crustaceans inland as well. Lobster finally reached Chicago in 1842 and soon there were upscale restaurants in most major cities that offered cuisine seafood, where moneyed diners liked to show off their wealth by eating several lobsters at a sitting.

Today, lobster fishing is an extremely regulated industry. There is a constant push and shove between the lobster men who make their living catching them, and the environmentalists who wish to protect them. The state and federal governments have settled on a middle ground with a minimum length at which they can be caught. That allows lobsters a chance to reproduce and lay their eggs before they can be harvested.

To read more The Lobster Is A Local Delicacy