National Lobster Day

September 25th is National Lobster Day in the United States.

Lobsters are large crustaceans that are a common, and often expensive, form of seafood. Even though lobster is now an expensive food, prior to the mid-19th century in America it was considered to be a poverty food and was often served to servants - to the degree that some servants had contracts stating they wouldn't eat lobster more than twice per week. It is also a taboo food for some religions.

Outside of that, lobsters are now considered to be a luxury food and are often served boiled or steamed in their shell. Diners are provided special tools used to crack open the lobsters, which can be eaten with melted butter and lemon juice. There are other ways of eating lobster too; lobster Thermidor and lobster Newburg are two such.

Image: The Pancake of Heaven! / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

National Lobster Day

National Lobster Day is on June 15th in the United States.

Lobsters are large, clawed marine crustaceans. In its most general usage, the name lobster also includes other crustaceans, such as scampi, its culinary use is much more specific. When it comes to culinary lobsters, the term just refers to the clawed lobster, so ordering lobster in a restaurant won't get you a plate of scampi.

Lobsters are one of the more expensive types of seafood around and are therefore a valuable marine crop, although originally lobster was considered a food of last resort, or for lower classes, not a luxury food. The traditional method of cooking lobster is involves boiling or steaming them alive. There are other methods of cooking them, though, and the prior two are actually illegal in some places.

There are various different ways of cooking lobster, with the simplest being to cook the lobster and eat it from its shell.

National Lobster Newburg Day

National Lobster Newburg Day is on March 25th in the United States.

Lobster Newberg, or Lobster Newburg, was originally called Lobster à la Wenberg. It was created by a sea captain called Ben Wenberg in the late nineteenth century. The manager of the well know Delmonico's Restaurant in New York City, Charles Delmonico, added it to the restaurant menu after he was shown it. The dish was renamed after the two argued and it was removed from the menu. In order to bring it back to satisfy customers, it was now called Lobster à la Newberg - Newbery being an anagram of Wenberg.

The lobster is cooked with Cayenne pepper, sherry, eggs, cream and butter. A close relative of the dish is Lobster Thermidor, which appeared shortly afterwards. Another variant is Crab Meat Newburg.

Lobster Thermidor Day

January 24th is Lobster Thermidor Day in the United States.

The famous, and amongst chefs and gourmets, legendary, French chef, culinary writer and restaurateur Auguste Escoffier, who updated and made popular traditional French cooking methods and elevated cooking to a respected profession, created Lobster Thermidor around 1880 at a restaurant called Maison Maire in Paris, which was near the Comédie Française, a theatre. The dish was apparently named to honour Victorien Sardou's play Thermidor, which opened at the theatre in January 1891. The play, which takes its name from the month in the French Republican Calendar, celebrates the Thermidorian Reaction which resulted in the overthrow and execution of Robespierre and the end of the Reign of Terror.

This is, as the name suggests, a lobster dish, in which cooked lobster meat, together with brandy (often cognac), and egg yolks are stuffed inside a lobster shell, and which may be served with a crust made from oven-browned cheese, commonly Gruyère. Mustard must be used in the sauce. The dish is quite expensive and time consuming to make and, given that lobster by itself tends to be quite an expensive item of seafood, is generally only served on special occasions. This was by no means the only dish still cooked today that was created by Escoffier; two of the most famous are still Peach Melba and Melba Toast, both named after Dame Nellie Melba, the Australian singer.

A more modern, and very similar, dish in its ingredients, cooking and serving, is the American Lobster Newberg.