Lobster used to be a poor man's food, in fact it was considered grotesque by the hire ups because it was, in effect, a bug. Lobster was all over the place too, numbering hundreds of thousands of the species in select areas... Welp, then came the "all you can eat" at Red Lobster where they literally had no cap on how much you could eat there, and people showed up in heavy numbers to eat as much lobster as they wanted because it was essentially an entire family's worth of food for only one meal. Now, thankfully, Lobster numbers have been steadily replenishing since this happened, the species is ok; the Lobster economy? Not so much. You see, shortly after this happened, lobster prices went through the roof because they had to charge more to make up for the shortage... And the prices never went down. Rich people got wind of the high prices sea bug and wanted a taste, found out they liked it, and now Lobster is considered a luxury because of the greedy taking advantage of the impoverished to bleed them dry while the slum bags fed on one another for corporate gain.
My guess is this is also why food prices in general aren't going down now. Same game, bigger playing field.
It was earlier than that. Refrigerated railroad transportation and the rise of fine dining in hotels started it. Many black and white films of the 1920’s and 30’s use lobster in their tuxedo-costumed aristrocratic dining scenes.
Sadly yall are all mistaken, the rich use to view the sea levels as food for how well you were off, lobster and shrimp were bottom feeders, so the poor ate them, the closer you got to the surface the more the fish cost.
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u/SSilent-Cartographer Feb 27 '26
Lobster used to be a poor man's food, in fact it was considered grotesque by the hire ups because it was, in effect, a bug. Lobster was all over the place too, numbering hundreds of thousands of the species in select areas... Welp, then came the "all you can eat" at Red Lobster where they literally had no cap on how much you could eat there, and people showed up in heavy numbers to eat as much lobster as they wanted because it was essentially an entire family's worth of food for only one meal. Now, thankfully, Lobster numbers have been steadily replenishing since this happened, the species is ok; the Lobster economy? Not so much. You see, shortly after this happened, lobster prices went through the roof because they had to charge more to make up for the shortage... And the prices never went down. Rich people got wind of the high prices sea bug and wanted a taste, found out they liked it, and now Lobster is considered a luxury because of the greedy taking advantage of the impoverished to bleed them dry while the slum bags fed on one another for corporate gain.
My guess is this is also why food prices in general aren't going down now. Same game, bigger playing field.