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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009
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 FOOD CRITIC'S LAMENT 
19

70-Year-Old Lobster Deserves Freedom

Larry's plight stirs conscience of restaurant writer

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(Newser) – Restaurant writer Ryan Sutton has dined on his share of lobsters, but the plight of one venerable crustacean has left him without an appetite. "Larry" is a 70-year-old lobster at New York's Oceana restaurant awaiting its fate as a $275 entree. Sutton admits he's never given much thought to the age of any of the cows or pigs he's feasted on, but 70 years?

"There’s something deeply unsettling—logic and science aside—about feasting on a creature so long-lived," he writes for Bloomberg. "Surviving to such an age, having dodged lobster traps all his life, doesn’t he deserve some sort of 'get out of jail free' card?" At 11 pounds, Larry would likely be poached and steamed, says Oceana's manager. At the very least, Sutton hopes he's killed with a knife beforehand.

This isn't Larry: It's a freshly caught lobster is seen on the wharf at Cundy's Harbor, Maine.
This isn't Larry: It's a freshly caught lobster is seen on the wharf at Cundy's Harbor, Maine.   (AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach)
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Of all the lobsters I’ve dined on recently, and I’ve dined on many, Oceana’s have been my favorite. But this 11-pounder is not for me. It’s his age that moves me—we don’t often contemplate the age of the animals we eat. - Ryan Sutton, Bloomberg

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19 comments
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Circusdog
Oct 23, 09 11:58 AM CDT
And some melted butter! Reply
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0
schmidtkoff
Oct 23, 09 12:21 PM CDT
aw, c'mon - no death panels for larry. let the senior go back to live out his life in the ocean. i just know that somebody out there is going to top the 275. price tag and release him. at least with my fingers crossed, i hope so. Reply
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+9
IN RESPONSE:
bewilderbeast
Oct 24, 09 6:23 AM CDT
Rather eat Larry and don't catch a whole bunch of breeding-age lobsters. And fish. And other sea creatures. We're over-fishing our oceans everywhere.
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0
gabo
Oct 23, 09 12:23 PM CDT
I think this should be clarified... Reply
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+2
Cat-Lover
Oct 23, 09 2:06 PM CDT
"There's something deeply unsettling -- logic and science aside -- about feasting on a creature....[!]" Nothing more is needed to say. Nature has provided mankind with an abundance of foods that don't require killing anything. Reply
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+3

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