The Spoils

Get your (lobster) tail in gear 

By

Bright Red Lobster

Lobster is the most succulent, sought-after seafood in America. Whether we're delicately devouring one with a tiny fork at a fine-dining establishment, cracking one on a picnic table in Maine, ordering a McLobster roll at McDonald's (they do exist), or dunking a piece of tail meat into melted butter at, well, a Red Lobster, it's clear that if you like food that once swam in the ocean, you love lobster.

No one knows this more than Mark Grobman, CAS/BA '77, the wholesale purchasing manager for New York-based Lobster Place. He buys about 15,000 pounds of lobster in an average week—and has eaten his fair share as well. We asked the former Maine resident to help us debut our new back-cover feature by deconstructing this craved crustacean.

Which one of the following statements about lobsters is not true?

A) Offshore lobsters migrate during the spring anywhere from 50 to 190 miles.

B) Scientists believe some American lobsters may live to be 100 years old.

C) Females can produce from 5,000 to 100,000 eggs, depending on their size. 

D) Lobsters molt only once over a period of five to eight years before they reach the minimum legal size to be harvested.

Lobsters can molt as many as 25 times before reaching adulthood. The correct answer is D.