Each day brings old memories as if they had just happened, clear pictures arriving in full blast, a reminder of another life and today, a moment of remembering delicacies we haven’t eaten in what seems like forever.
The only father-in-law I ever knew decided, as his new daughter was arriving at their summer house for the weekend, to welcome me in a true New England way. Lobsters on the outdoor grill stuffed first with bearnaise sauce, cooked until lightly done and served piping hot with nothing but a green salad. The creature stared up at me and I was just grateful that I had some idea what to do with it.
My first ever roommate in Boston, Penelope Walcott the Third, took me home with her once a week, where her parents would seat us in the summer garden, kitchen cloths tied around our necks, and with no further ado place four large boiled red lobsters on the wooden table. I was shown how to take it apart, use the crackers to open limbs and then dip the meat into hot butter. It was a new ritual to a pale English girl but one I did with gusto. At least I was somewhat prepared for the lobster hazing of my new married family.
The day designed to bring an end to lobster eating was in Sydney. I had just arrived as the new Managing Director of PBL Films and my presence was demanded at a Japanese restaurant to meet the heavies of the Australian film business. My boss gave me the address of a Japanese restaurant where I was shown into a room with a large table and told to wait. An hour went by, and despite asking often if the restaurant had heard from their patron, no one came. Finally my new boss, a little tipsy, walked in and told me that twenty men had been sitting in another room waiting for me. I was ushered in and no one moved, they couldn’t. Their legs and feet were in the well under the table and everyone’s bottom was at floor level. I was squeezed in between two men eating sushi and someone passed a dish to me. Large drinks were poured and I was absorbed into the meal and ignored.
Two waiters entered the room, each carrying lobsters not yet cooked, one in each hand, still the color of live beings. They were put on the table to crawl around while another Japanese man came into the room with a long sword in his hand. I wondered what on earth he was going to do. I found out as the sword slashed cleanly into each lobster cutting them open while the creatures continued to walk around the table. Decorum demanded that one ate them as they walked past you, digging your chop sticks into their spines. I thought I would pass out. I wasn’t certain what this introduction to Oz was supposed to be, but it certainly told me that I was in a new land surrounded by foreigners. I had done this before, I had been the only odd one in the room, I could do it again.
The lobsters finally died on the table and meat gone, were taken away. I have never touched a lobster since.
