The lobsters in Maine keep on the grass

A RESTAURANT in the United States is using marijuana to sedate lobsters before killing them.

Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound, a restaurant in Maine, says the process is more humane as it lessens their pain before death.

You think? A crustacean getting slowly boiled to death feels less pain because it’s stoned?

Well, perhaps. In fact, lobsters are very philosophical creatures. Given man’s propensity for eating them preferably in a creamy white wine sauce, they’d long ago been advised by their forefathers to “live everyday as if it’s your last”. People like Charlotte generally made sure the advice was proven right.

But you couldn’t lay the blame for the mass murder of lobsters at Charlotte’s door. For that, you had to have a sense of history and go all the way back to 238 BC when Shih Hwang Ti was almost done unifying China by killing anyone who disagreed with him.

As unifying a country through force was hungry work, the emperor relied on his cousin Shih Hwang Ho to come up with culinary ideas fit for a king such as himself. Hwang Ho had already endeared himself to the king by inventing bird’s nest soup, which by itself was a stroke of genius and would have won him a Nobel if old Alfred had been around at the time.

Strolling along the beach one fine summer day, Hwang Ho’s eye fell casually on a particularly vile-looking hairy lobster scuttling along the sand.

A more philosophical man might have mused on God’s sense of humour for a lobster’s life might forever be summarised as two steps sideways and one step back.

But Hwang Ho was made of sterner stuff. He instinctively looked past its ugliness and in one, triumphant Eureka-moment just knew that the creature’s insides, once simmered gently with butter, shallots, fish stock, cream and white wine would produce a dish that would even make Emperor Shih temper his murderous ways in profound gratitude and thanksgiving.

It was in honour of his cousin that a river was named after him. Who do you think the Hwang Ho is named after?

On a note of historical trivia, Emperor Shih fell out with his cousin just before his death in 210 BC. He saw Hwang Ho cutting up onions and the emperor cried. Onions was his favourite dog.

I must apologise because I have digressed. I was actually recounting the history of man’s fascination with lobsters.

Back to the humane way of boiling the creatures alive. Lobsters are often cooked by being dropped into a pot of boiling water, seen as cruel by some. There is growing evidence the crustaceans feel pain.

Customers at the restaurant can choose whether they want the marijuana-sedated lobster or not. They invariably chose the stoned ones.

I wonder why?

A growing body of scientific findings suggest that not only lobsters but other invertebrates, such as crayfish and crabs, are able to feel pain.

The owner of Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound, Charlotte Gill, says eating the sedated lobster will not make customers high (Hah) and using marijuana leads to better quality meat, as the animal is more relaxed when it dies.

I don’t think the lobster views it quite like that. For them, it’s like ... life is pleasant and death is peaceful, but ... it’s the transition that’s troublesome.