TREVOR CORSON • THOUGHTS

Turns Out that Lobsters Talk to Fish

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 13:08:00 -0500

One of the scenes from The Secret Life of Lobsters that people remark about most is the description of the “LTV”—”lobster trap video”—which exposed the behavior of lobsters in a trap as rather like a mob of escaped convicts in a barroom brawl. Escaped convicts because, after their slugfest, most of the lobsters caught on the LTV security cameras didn’t stay imprisoned in the trap at all, but manage to bolt their underwater cage and remain at large.

The LTV was the brainchild of Dr. Win Watson at the University of New Hampshire, whose lab is exactly the place you’d want to work if you happen to be a marine-ecology-minded mad scientist. Other Dr. Watson projects I mention in the book include an Astroturf lobster treadmill, a baby lobster racetrack (with betting restricted to Dr. Watson’s students), and a tethered-lobster cross-generational cannibalism study.

One of Dr. Watson’s latest inquiries has asked whether lobsters talk. If you’ve read The Secret Life of Lobsters you know, of course, that they do—using urine ejected from nozzles on their faces. Which is also how they flirt on a date. But all that is another story. Here Dr. Watson was interested in vocalization—actual sound. Avid divers have told me that when they go lobster hunting underwater, they swear they hear the lobsters growling at them. But never before had audible lobster talk been scientifically documented.

Now it has, and the evidence suggests that lobsters aren’t just talking, they’re specifically talking to fish. (And the occasional invasive human.) Here is a short writeup of Dr. Watson’s recent discoveries from the current issue of the Working Waterfront:

Maybe no surprise to lobstermen who handle thousands of lobsters every week, researchers documented for the first time this year that lobsters make sound—part groan, part buzz—by vibrating the carapace, the largest part of the shell. A research team working in Dr. Win Watson’s laboratory at the University of New Hampshire conducted a series of experiments to study lobster noise-making habits.

They held lobsters in separate tanks—either alone, with other lobsters, or with fish, including cod and striped bass. The lobsters held alone made only one or two sounds in each 30-minute period, while those in the tanks with striped bass made 15 sounds, and those with cod made a raucous 50 sounds in the half hour.

The research team conducted a series of experiments with the sounds, and documented that 75 percent occurred when fish approached within a foot or two of the lobster, and often resulted in the fish moving away, leading to the conclusion that lobsters may be sounding off in order to discourage fish predation.

Part buzz, part groan. Which is exactly what I’d expect of the subjects of my first book talking to the subjects of my second.

Image: Guinness fish and lobster vintage pub sign.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 10:05:00 -0400

This is a pile of lobsters photographed on the coast of Maine around 1870. Lately the piles of lobsters being hauled in by Maine lobstermen are even bigger. That’s partly because lobsters are all that’s left in the Gulf of Maine for fishermen to catch—most of the cod, haddock, hake, and other fish have long since been wiped out from overfishing. This means that baby lobsters have few predators, which probably helps more of them survive. For now, that’s great news for lobstermen.

This causes a new problem, though. “Monoculture” is a word you often hear to describe farming methods that eliminate diversity by planting vast swaths of only one crop. The same thing can happen in the sea. The fishing industry in the Gulf of Maine now relies almost entirely on a monoculture of lobsters. This is dangerous because monocultures are often more susceptible to disease or ecological damage. Worse, if you lose your monoculture harvest, there’s nothing else to turn to—no diversity of alternative crops or sea creatures. And monocultures are very hard to change, because the farmers—or, in this case, fishermen—who depend on them for their livelihoods have developed a strong economic reliance on the way things are.

If you’ve read The Secret Life of Lobsters, you’ll probably remember the main biologist character in the book, the red-bearded renegade scientist Bob Steneck. Well, Bob is back in the news, having published a new paper in the journal Conservation Biology that warns of the dangers inherent in Maine’s over-reliance on lobsters. You can learn more about Bob’s latest concerns about the lobster fishery in this article in the New York Times.

Savage Beauty

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 11:01:00 -0400

I’m not normally much into fashion, but Alexander McQueen captured my heart with what the New York Times called the “lobster claw stiletto bootie,” perhaps the most aquatically sensual shoe ever created.

The Times wrote:

The boot transformed the models’ feet into … the claws of some futuristic crustacean. … McQueen, influenced by On the Origin of Species, presented a kind of evolution in reverse: from the sea we emerged; to the sea we will return.

Once again I find myself moved by McQueen’s work in the “Jellyfish Ensemble” pictured here, boots included, which is currently being featured in ads for the new retrospective of McQueen’s work at the Met, “Savage Beauty.” The jellyfish skirt, the fishy scales, the colors, and even the lighting here are stunning in their evocation on the human form of marine life in the depths, which is indeed, after all, from whence we came.

In Lieu of Being a Rock Star

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 23:05:00 -0400

Having played in a rock band in high school, the dream, of course, was always to “play an arena.” I’d assumed that dream had died a brutal and summary death once I’d headed down the path of becoming a writer—not to mention a writer who has spent a good chunk of his time writing about things like spatial and temporal patterns of benthic habit usage by invertebrates.

So it was kind of like getting a little piece of the high-school dream back when I arrived at the National Marine Educators Association conference in Boston yesterday to deliver my keynote speech and discovered that I would, actually, be playing an arena—Matthews Arena, home of the Northeastern Huskies.

Not exactly Madison Square Garden, but hey. Life is usually so full of disappointments. Savor those sweet, small victories.

Thank you, NMEA—you’re great people, it’s always a pleasure.

Would You Eat a Taco Off a Conveyor Belt? Why Would You Eat Sushi Off One?

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 22:44:00 -0400

It’s official, I spotted the future digs of New York City’s fast-approaching kaiten sushi joint in SoHo, on the corner of Grand & West Broadway, which according to a sign on the window of interrogation-room glass will be opening in February. As you probably know, kaiten sushi is the Japanese term for “conveyor-belt” sushi, and apparently sushi lovers in NYC are meant to be enthused by the news that it’s “already a massive hit in Mexico.”

I know I sound like the sushi snob that I am, but any traditional sushi chef worth his real wasabi will tell you that a piece of sushi quickly dries out and oxidizes immediately after it’s made, which is why good sushi is best eaten straight out of the chef’s hands.

Yeah, I know conveyor-belt sushi is popular in Japan. The Japanese people eating in those places are the same people who buy their grilled salmon from 7-Eleven.

Let me make a suggestion: I think an excellent type of restaurant for employing slow-moving conveyor belts to deliver food to diners would be restaurants that specialize in serving Triscuits and Cheez Whiz.

In the meantime, these folks should know better than to claim to be the first kaiten sushi restaurant in New York. There’s already one a few blocks away in the food court of a grocery store. Which tells you something.

If You Happen to Have Named Your Dog "Sushi"

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 21:46:43 -0400

Then I dare say here is the perfect doggie sweater.

The Lobster-Killing Conversation Continues

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 10:12:00 -0400

The timeless topic of how best to dispatch a lobster is revived again this weekend in a New York Times review of two new books that flesh out the lobster literature alongside my book, The Secret Life of Lobsters.

The review ponders the best way to kill a lobster for cooking, and cites “an illustrated blog post” I wrote detailing a quick and humane way to end a lobster’s life before cooking it. I’m republished that post here, below.

The Times review also mentions the “Crustastun” lobster-killing machine, which I’ve written about and posted pictures of as well (it’s two stories tall and weighs 80,000 pounds; you’ll also see a photo of the slightly horrifying “crustacean without the crust”), and you are welcome further to peruse my essay in Boston magazine on the Whole Foods lobster-killing controversy, as well as my criticism of the late David Foster Wallace in a Salon interview concerning his famous “Consider the Lobster” article.

Interestingly, debate has been raging over in Europe (and in the page of New Scientist magazine) about whether crustaceans should have legal rights, like cows and pigs; imagine a near future in which the police arrest you for boiling a lobster alive. There’s at least one town in the world where that could actually happen, as I’ve written in The Atlantic.

Personally, I think it seems a safe assumption that being boiled alive probably sucks, which is why I use the humane-approved technique that follows for killing lobsters before putting them in the pot:

Step 1: Cool the lobster in the freezer for fifteen minutes or so. Lobsters are cold-blooded and their body temperature adapts to match the ambient temperature around them, with a corresponding slowing of their heart rate, metabolism, and neural functioning. Cooling the lobster prevents it from moving around while you’re working, which is a lot safer, and results in some deadening of the animal’s nervous system.

Step 2: Hold the lobster upside down and place the point of the knife between its hindmost legs.

Step 3: Thrust the knife straight down into the body, and proceed immediately through Step 4.

Step 4: Slice down through the head, to split the front of the animal in half.

A few additional pointers:

• You don’t have to slice all the way through the last bit of shell to the cutting board; leave the top of the lobster’s shell intact for a more attractive presentation on the plate.

• If you execute the knife maneuver correctly, the claws and front legs should go instantly limp. But be aware that because lobsters have a decentralized nervous system, even though you have severed most of the nerve ganglia in the front of the lobster, the tail and hind legs may continue to twitch. (If that bothers you, remember that this is an animal that, based on its neural structure, appears to be roughly equivalent in its level of sentience to a mosquito. If it still bothers you, you should probably consider eating mock lobster.)

• Immediately after you kill the lobster, put it in the pot to boil, as you would have with the live animal.

WARNING: By reading this page you hereby agree to use the methods described here at your own risk. I make no claims to be a qualified instructor of culinary butchery, and I will not be responsible if you hurt yourself using a knife in your kitchen.

On the other hand, for those of you who crave additional drama and heroism in your kitchen, there are, of course, even more exciting ways to kill a lobster:

Maxfield Parish, untitled; cover linings for Poems of Childhood by Eugene Field, 1904.

P.S. Don’t take my word for all this. What follows is a statement prepared by Dr. Neville Gregory, who received an award from England’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

(At the time Dr. Gregory prepared the following statement on lobsters, he worked in the Animal Welfare and Stress department of the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. New Zealand has a significant fishery for spiny lobsters.)

The Humane Way to Kill a Lobster
by Dr. Neville Gregory

The appropriate way to humanely kill a lobster is to chill it, then kill it by either splitting or spiking it.

Chefs using this method can be sure that they are killing the lobsters humanely, while preparing good quality lobster meat.

Any animal killed for meat consumption must be killed humanely. This means the animal must not be stressed when being handled, should be held at the place of slaughter for only a short time under appropriate conditions, and the killing method must not cause pain or distress prior to death.

Many seafood shops and restaurants and also private citizen chefs kill lobsters inhumanely.

Eight common procedures are used to kill lobsters, usually with two or more methods combined. These were chilling, drowning, spiking, chest spike, splitting, and tailing, freezing, and boiling (definitions listed below).

Freezing or boiling methods affect the quality of the meat. Boiling lobsters alive tends to make the meat chewy while freezing makes the meat lose its fresh appearance. Both are inhumane.

Lobsters need to be chilled before being killed.

Being cold blooded, chilling the lobster helps reduce nerve function and metabolic activity. When it is fully chilled, the lobster will stop moving and no longer responds to being handled.

After chilling a lobster, split it along its length where it has two chains of nerve ganglia, with interconnecting nerves along its body under the shell. Chilling beforehand prevents the lobster from moving which avoids mistakes during splitting—otherwise it is hard to achieve a humane kill in an unchilled animal.

Original text and photos are © copyright Trevor Corson. Please only use this material with attribution, thanks!

In Tokyo, the New Normal

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:09:56 -0400

In an email from a Japanese friend in Tokyo:

People in Tokyo tend to have spring allergies, so in the old days at this time of year, we’d greet each other with the words, “The pollen count is low, it’s a nice day, isn’t it?” Lately, we’re greeting each other with the words, “The radiation level is 0.09 millisieverts, a little higher than normal, isn’t it?”

No Wonder Japan Has Earthquakes

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:12:22 -0400

Having experienced the earthquake in Kobe, Japan in 1995—during which I was utterly convinced my life was about to end—and now seeing even worse devastation in Japan again, with the tsunami, I’m struck by this graphic from the GeoResources website illustrating the confluence of tectonic plates that causes these devastating tremors. Japan could not be more terribly situated for seismic destruction.

The Future of Japanese Seafood

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 01:44:00 -0400

People have been asking me whether I think sushi is going to be safe to eat, with the threat of radiation from the stricken nuclear plant possibly affecting Japan’s food supply. While this might seem almost irrelevant considering the potential direct threat to the people of Japan at the moment, it’s a fair question. For starters, here are few thoughts I offered the New York Times in an article published today:

…Trevor Corson, a sushi expert and a former commercial fisherman who used to live in Japan, said seafood caught “in an ocean churning with movement and dispersal might turn out to be less of a concern than agricultural products that are exposed and stationary.”

But Mr. Corson also said the Japanese seafood industry could face a long and difficult struggle “to establish faith in the safety of their seafood—not unlike the challenges faced by gulf fishermen in the U.S. after the BP oil spill.”

The Tsukiji fish market in central Tokyo, the world’s largest clearinghouse for just about anything that fishermen pull from the sea, was not physically damaged by the earthquake. Its cobblestone aisles and alleyways were as loud, profane and hurly-burly as ever on Saturday. But something in Tsukiji’s soul seems to have been lost, or at least badly bruised, in the tsunami.

Before the disaster, the market drew 10 percent of its daily inventory of 2,400 tons of seafood from the waters off Tohoku, the coastal epicenter of the earthquake. The fishery there is renowned for its scallops, seaweed, bonito and shark’s fin. Tohoku, as a place and a brand in Japan, was formidable. …

“I have started to hear people in the West worrying about radioactive sushi and so on, but perception and reality are quite different,” said Mr. Corson, the author of The Story of Sushi. “Much of the seafood typically used in sushi doesn’t originate in Japan and never passes through the country.”

Check out the entire article, which discusses other Japanese food products as well, such as Kobe beef. I’ll try to post more on this question soon.

Update: My more detailed post on this topic at The Atlantic.

Photo of destroyed Japanese fishing boats: Itsuo Inouye/Associated Press, via NYT.com

The Knowns and Unknowns of Lobster Love

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 11:17:00 -0500

I must compliment the Lotos Club for considering the wide range of potential interests among its members and last night providing, in addition to Don Rumsfeld’s book signing upstairs, at the same time a talk on the lovemaking techniques of lobsters by Trevor Corson in the library—preparations pictured above. While Henry Kissinger chose not to attend my lecture, I’m pleased to report that several world-famous chefs opted for the crustacean porn.

The delightful and indefatigable Dorothy Hamilton, founder of the International Culinary Center and the French Culinary Institute, among many, many other accomplishments, has posted further details on the evening, including photos of one of said world-famous chefs decorated with a lobster bib.

"Ridiculously Fun"

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:53:00 -0500

If you have never seen a gathering of Beltway insiders metamorphose into a room full of sushi chefs, it puts to shame the miraculous transformation of caterpillar to butterfly.

At this shindig I taught at CulinAerie in Washington D.C. for the alumni association of the Potomac School, I provided the merest of instruction and the team was knocking out restaurant-quality old-school maki in moments. More proof that D.C. foodies are on the rise. Check out the rest of the pics.

My theory for why these classes are so satisfying is that people assume basic sushi is difficult to make, when in fact, provided the proper tips on the fundamentals, old-school maki that look perfect aren’t that hard to produce. You just need to forget everything you’ve ever believed about rolls being rolled. Secret: they’re not!

Immediately after the class, the young lady in the middle of this photo posted on Facebook:

Well, guess I can cross “Have my sushi made fun of by Iron Chef judge” off my to-do list before I die. That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

Lest I have worried that the fun I’d made, meant lovingly of course, might have been too Gordon Ramsay-esque, the next day she sent the following note:

Dear Sushi Concierge, thank you for an insightful, witty, and ridiculously fun night. I will surely think of this night the next 200 or so times I have sushi.

Honestly, I had a ridiculously fun time too. Although I’m also curious how long it’s going to take her to eat sushi 200 times. What’s your sushi-200-times timeline?

Pants Not Included

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 09:41:47 -0500

I’m very tempted to buy this. Only thing that gives me pause is “Pants not included.” Wondering if that’s what makes it “Adult.”

Long Live the Lobster Bandidos

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 11:02:00 -0500

Members of the foodiesphere are calling for a guest judge appearance on Top Chef for the Swedish chef from the Muppets. I am 100% on board with this, and would in addition like to see a return of the Lobster Bandidos.

Finding Our Way

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:25:18 -0500

When I was a lobsterman in Maine I prided myself on my ability to navigate across the sea through the dense fog using a compass and my wristwatch. Just now I used my iPhone to search for a store in Manhattan that I didn’t realize I was already standing in front of.

Here’s a picture I snapped of the late Warren Fernald in his boat Mother Ann—if you’ve read The Secret Life of Lobsters you know the man well. He spent most of his days finding buoys and traps across miles of ocean, in all forms of weather, without the assistance of a single electronic device.

I wonder what we all might find if we pulled our heads out of our smartphones for a second and looked around.

$400,000 for a Fish?

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:14:25 -0500

What’s with the $400,000 bluefin tuna that just sold at a new year’s auction in Tokyo? Nothing. This recurring headline of extravagantly priced tuna is one of those news items that leaves you with less knowledge than you had before you heard about it. That’s because the only reason any bidder at the Tokyo auction ever pays that much for a fish is to deliberately spend way more than any sane person should. Blowing that much on a tuna is either a celebration of recent profits, or a bid for publicity to boost a restaurant or distributor’s profile. In short, it’s money spent on advertising, not on fish. And clearly, while very expensive, it’s a technique that works.

Which is not to dismiss the larger, very real, and very sad trend of generally increasing prices for bluefin tuna due to their growing scarcity. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before the global sushi industry wipes these majestic fish off the face of the earth.

Which is doubly sad, because it’s completely unnecessary. As I’ve written in The New York Times, The Atlantic, on Yahoo/CSM, and elsewhere, bluefin tuna aren’t even a traditional Japanese sushi fish.

Photo: Kyodo via AP Images

Maine in Winter

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:38:00 -0500

I’m speechless.

photo: Sarah Corson

Feeling "Manly"?

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:10:00 -0500

In case you sushi lovers haven’t had enough of my posts on nigiri topped with flounder testicle, here’s the latest high-end food fad in that category: sipping cod semen.

Apparently no one has told these people that we’re trying to bring back the cod population. I don’t think slurping down all the spermatozoa is going to help. Where is our faith in the future of the seas?

I know, if the fish has already been caught, there’s no point in letting the semen go to waste. So, for those who imbibe it, please do your part to replenish the ocean by finding a coddish mermaid to mate with. “Splash” for the twenty-first century.

Photo: Cod milt, from Serious Eats.

How Much Should Sushi Cost?

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 10:24:59 -0500

Most of us are probably overpaying for good sushi. Last night at my Sushi Concierge dinner lecture in New York, one guest declared our simple but elegant menu of traditional sushi better than meals he’d eaten at the much pricier sushi bars Masa and Yasuda. It’s all about knowledge. I’ll be sharing more insider tips at my next dinner lecture in New York on Tuesday, December 7. I’d love to see you there. Bring friends, you will all be surprised at what sushi experts you become.

Photo by Kirsten Luce for the New York Times.

A Sense of Time

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 13:22:00 -0400

It’s the 180th anniversary of the founding of the tiny fishing community on the Cranberry Isles in Maine, where the 5th-generation lobstermen depicted in The Secret Life of Lobsters live and work. Here’s the commemorative postmark, showing the small boat that still ferries passengers and brings the islanders their daily mail. Hard to believe I have been riding that same boat since I was a child.