Did you know: Lobsters were once so common that prisoners and servants were fed lobsters.
During the American colonial period, lobsters were not valued as food and were mostly eaten by the poor, convicts, and indentured servants. Native tribes near the coast used lobsters as fertilizer or bait rather than food.
People even hid lobster shells so that the profit of poverty would not be obvious. In Massachusetts, indentured servants sued to limit lobster dinners to three times a week and won.
Lobsters were abundant, easy to collect from shore, and were considered bottom feeders. They were usually consumed as a paste or stew. In the early 19th century, lobsters were cheaper than baked beans in Boston and were sometimes even fed to cats.
But as railroads became widespread in the late 19th century and lobsters began to be served on trains, people unfamiliar with them began to find them delicious.
This led to increased demand and the start of canned lobster production. With the decrease in the number of lobsters and the increase in demand in the 1920s, lobsters turned into a popular delicacy that adorned the menus of only celebrities and the rich in the 1950s...
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