University of New Hampshire Press
October 2012
On Sale: October 8, 2012
254 pages ISBN: 1584659629 EAN: 9781584659624 Kindle: B0098ODZBA Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
Consider the lobster. An improbable icon, Mesozoic revenant,
surrealist fetish, nightmare ornament, and gastronomic
adventure, it has fascinated people throughout history. It
may be an exaggeration to say that lobsters are a cultural
obsession--but only slightly. I, Lobster dissects the place
of the lobster in human affairs, through history, science,
myth, art, literature, music, movies, and, of course,
cuisine. Though not generally beautiful to human eyes,
lobsters star in some of the most gorgeous works of art in
the world, the still-lifes painted in the Low Countries
during the seventeenth century. And while many of us would
question their sex appeal, lobsters carried an erotic charge
for artists of the twentieth century who, inspired by Freud,
found many opportunities to think of them in that way.
Nancy Frazier explores diverse facets of our fascination
with the lobster, whether in art, myth, or science. She
describes how the lobster lives in its natural surroundings:
its food, sex life, social life, predators, and general
behavior. But I, Lobster goes beyond what we think about and
do to the lobster, to explore how lobsters speak to us as
signs, symbols, metaphors, code words, myth, lore, and
fantasy. With recipes drawn from such notable lobster
connoisseurs as M. F. K. Fisher, Alice B. Toklas, and Craig
Claiborne, I, Lobster is a quirky, charming, and weirdly
fascinating compendium of lobster lore.
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