Project #3 Reconsidering the Lobster Project #3, Draft #1
Draft #2:
Emma Bryan
Professor Miller
English 110 H2
19 November 2018
The Reality of Lobster
Everybody thinks differently about eating animals. Some people eat everything, some people are vegetarian, and some people are vegan. There’s something that lingers in the back of my mind though. I know many people who don’t eat meat, as in red meat like beef or steak, but they’ll eat seafood. Is this because they don’t believe sea creatures like fish or lobster don’t have feelings? I guess I can’t answer this question for someone else, but I can say there is someone who doesn’t appreciate the way lobsters are cooked.
David Foster Wallace has taken in different views of cooking and eating lobster. He took it to himself to go to a lobster fest in Maine. There’s an abundance of different ways lobster is cooked and eaten. Wallace states, “Also available are lobster rolls, lobster turnovers, lobster sauté, Down East lobster salad, lobster bisque, lobster ravioli, and deep-fried lobster dumplings” (Wallace 498). Clearly there is a wide variety of different ways lobster is served, and it’s normal for the people here. At first glance Wallace thought this was cool, and quite amazing, but then he thought about how the lobsters are treated. Most of the time lobsters are cooked alive in boiling water. This is the best way to get the most flavor out of lobster. After Wallace did some thinking and researching, he realized this is actually cruel, even though he’ll eat other meats. He thought about how boiling a lobster alive isn’t all that humane. Though this does sound cruel, it doesn’t mean people should just stop eating lobster. It goes much further than just eating and cooking a lobster alive.
The reality is, everybody sees cooking animals differently. There’s really no way to explain how someone else feels the way they do about eating animals. I’ve taken into account three authors who could make me somewhat realize the ways other people feel about eating animals. Michael Pollan, Johnath Foer, David Foster Wallace, and Hal Herzog all see cooking and eating animals differently. They’ve given me the realization that eating animals isn’t as simple as it seems.
I’ve grown up eating animal meat and watching animals be skinned alive. My dad was big into hunting. I started going out with him to hunt deer ever since I can remember. We’d come back and hang the deer. A few days later we’d skin and take apart the deer to obtain all the meat possible. We’d have meat in the freezer for months. Years later I go out and do the same thing with my boyfriend. I’ve never really thought of it as being bad, it’s how I was raised. I also never thought of it as a “trophy”, which many people who don’t hunt would assume every hunter thinks. We’d go out to get a deer to put meat in the freezer. It was cheap and affordable. Most people can’t be a part of this, if I wasn’t raised this way, I’m sure I couldn’t either. I know I wouldn’t be able to slaughter a dog or a cat. Why is this so different?
