Lobster for the poor

The Sunday article about the glut of lobsters reminded me of a nephew who once was a lobsterman out of South Bristol, Maine, who eventually quit during a similar glut. It also reminded me of an excerpt from Judson Hale’s “Inside New England” (Hale was editor of Yankee Magazine):

“Back in Pilgrim days, when a storm hit Plymouth, Massachusetts, lobsters tossed ashore piled up in windrows some two feet high along the beaches. Lobsters were so plentiful and so easily gathered that they were considered food for only the very poor. In their book ‘Eating in America,’ Waverly Root and Richard de Rochemont report that in 1622, when a group of new colonists arrived in Plymouth, Governor William Bradford was deeply humiliated because his colony was so short of food that the only ‘dish they could present their friends was lobster.’”

Julian Schrock

Barre