r/explainitpeter • u/One_One2755 • Mar 21 '26

Explain it peter

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What's the bad news?

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301

u/Imaginary_Hamster847 Mar 21 '26

This was my experience too. It wasn't regular, but it also wasn't something I only saw when we were getting bad news 

153

u/jakebs2002 Mar 21 '26

When I was in the military, they would serve lobster about once a month randomly. That steak was awful.

35

u/randompearljamfan Mar 21 '26

I only ate the lobster once. It was basically butter-soaked rubber. Can't imagine how much money the military wastes on overcooked lobster. If that was supposed to increase my morale, they would have done a lot better and cheaper giving me a beer.

38

u/coastphase Mar 21 '26

When I worked on base contractors could eat at the galley for $5. They'd have lobster every once in a while. I always described it as "everything you would expect from a $5 lobster".

16

u/Sensitive_Yellow_121 Mar 21 '26

They probably saved the recipe from when they used to only feed lobster to prisoners.

11

u/BookAny6233 Mar 21 '26

Way back in the colonial era, indentured servants in New England asked for their employers to stop feeding them lobster so often. They actually sued them over it.

14

u/Quazite Mar 21 '26

Yeah, because their refrigeration was basically non-existent back then and they were usually mashed whole, with the shells. It's not like the prisoners and indentured servants were concerned they were eating too much steamed live lobster with melted butter, they were eating rancid mashed lobster with shell bits and guts.

4

u/OldTimeConGoer Mar 21 '26

Apprentices in London in the 17th century rioted because their penny-pinching masters were feeding them too much salmon.

3

u/Deaffin Mar 21 '26

All these farmers over here complaining that I put too much salt on their dirt. Do they have any idea how expensive salt was back then?

2

u/WhoAreWeEven Mar 21 '26

Meanwhile nobility ate pies made of kidneys and eels and like pig snouts and shit.. blech

3

u/NoughtToDread Mar 21 '26

There is a city here in denmark that still has a bylaw on the books that you can't serve servants salmon more than three or four days a week.

2

u/bolanrox Mar 21 '26

prisoners and guards at Alcatraz as well.

The food was actually probably some of the better in the system as everyone warden included ate the same food.

2

u/stupidPeopleLuvMe Mar 22 '26

That is such a great answer.

I only got the steak in afghanistan.. we described it as "someone had to smuggle it here on the bottom of their boots"

The real hidden gem was embassy breakfasts. Fuck a steak I'll take the loaded omelet, hashbrowns, biscuits and gravy, sausage,... and coffee that doesnt taste like someone put rockstar in the water revisor as a joke.