As David Foster Wallace wrote in his missive from the 2004 Maine Lobster Festival "Consider The Lobster," “is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?
Wallace goes on to argue that while our definition of “pain” may not apply to the arthropods. Should that invalidate any pain that might feel, simply because we cannot relate?
A restaurateur in Maine is now in hot water for employment a somewhat unorthodox treatment to relieve some of the pain: toking the lobsters up before the boil. Charlotte Gill of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound decided to put her medical marijuana license to good use by “smoking” or giving weed to the lobsters prior to their demise in a pot of boiling water, to alleviate the pain she thinks the animals feel.
The Maine Health Inspection Program contacted Gill to serve her a warning, stating that the process violates the Maine food code by introducing an “adulterant” (marijuana) into the food.
According to food writer Corby Kummer, the introduction of marijuana to cuisine is par for the course in a “a new culinary frontier.” The pain reduction, however, is confusing.
“What’s fascinating is, why are people so concerned about the pain that lobsters feel before they are killed, as opposed to the chickens, the pork, the rest of the animals?” Kummer said in an interview with Boston Public Radio Tuesday. “You either care about this for all animals, or you don’t care about it.”
Corby Kummer is a Senior Editor at The Atlantic, a restaurant critic and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition and Policy. To hear his full interview, click on the audio player above.
