>literal bug
>used to be fed to prisoners
>insanely easy to catch (i can pull 10 of these out of the water with fins/goggles but can't catch a fish to save my life)

How did these sea roaches get memed into a luxury?

>>17911137 (OP)
It's not a bug; the fact that it is now expensive is because rich people eventually tasted it and realized it's good

>>17911143
They just taste like shrimps because they are literally shrimps. But big. It's nothing special.

>>17911137 (OP)
rich people love monopolizing things they like and seethe and cry when something happens that changes this status quo. Just like how caviar was considered peasant shitslop, and then made into luxury once the rich took interest to it, and then the seethe followed when the chinese made it readily available.

>>17911137 (OP)
Just to check op, do you think the lobster being served to prisoners was prepared and served in the same way it is in fancy restaurants?

Years ago I read a book called The Lobster Coast that’s a history of Maine filled with lobster lore. I forget exactly when and how the shift came towards making it a luxury food but I think refrigerated rail cars had something to do with it. One of the factoids that sticks with me is that one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center had a couple of tons of lobsters in the cargo hold.

>>17911283
>One of the factoids that sticks with me is that one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center had a couple of tons of lobsters in the cargo hold.
Weren't they passenger planes? Seems odd that you would use them to transport lobsters of all things.

>>17911312
If there's space in the cargo hold then passenger jets routinely transport other things as well.

>>17911315
Yeah, I just assumed that you wouldn't use it to transport fresh(?) lobsters or food in general because you'd have to spend a lot of money on refrigeration, especially if loading/unloading (and then loading to the next transport or storage) is a low priority compared to boarding passengers.

When you’re poor, you achieve popularity by sharing with people and facilitating access.

>”Oh I got this nice thing from X for only Y, it’s a real bargain for the value!”

When you’re middle class, you achieve popularity by flirting with both. If you’re too exclusive, you’ll piss people off. If you’re too inclusive you’ll seem unremarkable or cheap.

>>17911319
I’m assuming they have some kind of refrigerated pods that can be easily handled. They bring fresh cut flowers from South America in passenger jets—just another premium easily spoiled cargo, but crazy given how we’re discussing sea bugs once seen as slop for the poors.

>>17911137 (OP)
Because they're good. Brisket (and a lot of barbecue cuts, really) were considered low class too.

>>17911237
Being Rich isn't about having money, but having what the peasants can't ever achieve

>>17911237
You see this presently with diamonds. Once seen as the stone of wealth, we can now make them in big pods for pennies on the dollar, and no Africans have to murder each other to get them.

Thus the diamond market is about to have the rug pulled out from under it. Any McDonald’s burger flipper can buy a 5 carat diamond engagement ring now. The rich don’t care about diamonds anymore. The industry has been stolen from them.

I wear a necklace that would cost $10k if it weren’t lab-grown. It cost me less than $1k.

>>17911137 (OP)
Like most things elevated prices have to do with the government being involved and a mafia forming around that fact.

You can't just become a lobsterman. The govt. needs to get you a loicense and if you want one, the other lobsterman have to interview you and agree that you should be allowed to get one, a la a literal dark ages guild.

If you try to fish lobster illegally, they will find you and break ya legs with a tire iron.

Whenever you see an elevated price, assume regulation is somehow involved.

They have a unique and rich flavor. Also, just because they are common where you live, doesn't mean they are common around the world.

>>17911137 (OP)
>literal bug
Wrong.
>used to be fed to prisoners
Wrong
>insanely easy to catch (i can pull 10 of these out of the water with fins/goggles but can't catch a fish to save my life)
Wrong
>How did these sea roaches get memed into a luxury?
Wrong

Retarded on all accounts, do you have brain damage?

>>17911838
>t. seething wealthfag who got memed into peasant food

>>17911843
NTA but it is literally not a bug. Literal bugs are insects in the order Hemiptera and lobsters are neither of those things.

>>17911849
Bug isn't a scientific term you fucking retard.

>>17911853
Yes it is. Insects of the order Hemiptera are called true bugs

>>17911843
Fishermen aren't peasants, retard. We are a class above you.

>>17911492
One of the interesting things I read in The Lobster Coast is that the Maine lobster fishery is largely self regulated and an exception to the “tragedy of the commons”. After some lobster wars involving shotguns and dynamite, the fishermen have worked things out amongst themselves over territory and how many traps you can have. Call it a mafia or guild but they have kept the lobster population steady while other fisheries have shut down or need heavy handed government intervention as every last scrap of protein gets vacuumed up from the seas.
I think they’re so expensive because they’re labor intensive to catch and hard to ship fresh to market. They’re ok but being from Louisiana I prefer crawfish, their freshwater cousins.

>>17912581
>whitest state in the country
Hmm......

Crustaceans are some of my favorite animals. There's something about crawfish living in the water that makes you feel good

>>17911137 (OP)
>How did these sea roaches get memed into a luxury?

Transportation.
Everything in capitalism is dictated by travel cost. Lobsters aren't rare, they're not luxurious, they're not difficult to catch, they subsist off of the literal shit and detritus on the bottom of the ocean, but they're were successfully commodified as a "luxury good from some other place". It's just that easy.
Specifically, this one: >>17911283 in the past you couldn't get sea food of any sort into inland town because it would expire within moments after death (like, actual moments), but with refrigeration you could actually move *live* seafood into town for people to expensively enjoy.


>>17912591
>There's something about crawfish living in the water that makes you feel good

Good character design makes them pleasant to look at unlike terrestrial insects.
They're smooth like a plastic toy, their eyeballs are prominent and lack grids, and the way they grasp and interact with things with their big claws can be quite charming and comical.

>>17911879
historically speaking fisherman have always been poor, in every country.
there has never been a financially good time to be a fisherman, unlike farming.

they do have a nice a life however. even comm fisherman, while they don't get to chill and listen to music fishing off the pier, get lots of time off in the off season

>>17912793
I'm sure when the cast net was invented they were shitting themselves