Lobster

Monday

Alec Marsh

The real benefit of wind power? Lobster for all!

In a world of bewildering uncertainty and breakneck change, where a pack of butter now costs about the same as a small family saloon in the 1950s, there is at last some good news to cheer the soul. It concerns the lobster, that culinarily appealing crustacean which has sustained us nutritionally since the Stone Age – albeit in recent times mainly for the wealthier sort. Suddenly, the lobster has got the wind in its sails. It’s thanks in no small part to Britain’s rather quixotic, headlong dash to become, seemingly, the only net-zero country in the world, and the enormous wind turbines that have been springing up off our shores

Saturday

Michael Mosbacher

In defence of cruel foods

Fishmongers are an endangered species in London. Thankfully, 15 minutes walk across Westminster from The Spectator’s offices there is an excellent fish stall on Tachbrook Street market in Pimlico. Jonathan Norris’s stall — much frequented by 1990s Tory politicians — does a thriving trade in live lobsters. He will happily boil the crustaceans for you in his lobster kettle, but buying them alive is more fun, especially if you have children in tow. At this time of year the lobsters are Cornish; in the winter live lobster flown in from Canada will have to do. Buying — and then boiling — live lobsters is a sure way of getting children

Wednesday

Bruce Anderson

Boris’s ‘lobster law’ is ridiculous

Sometimes, there is only one conclusion to be drawn – that somehow, the calendar is stuck. Though days appear to pass, it is still April 1. The latest example of April foolishness concerns shellfish. A Bill on animal rights is currently going through the House of Lords, and the government seems minded to accept an amendment which would acknowledge that crustaceans and molluscs are sentient beings and therefore must have rights. In the case of lobsters, this would mean that they could no longer be cooked by being thrust, still alive, into boiling water. As it happens, there is a good culinary case for putting lobsters into cold water and