Also caviar

Weren't lobsters like that? I remember reading somewhere that only poor people ate them sometime ago, beaches would sometimes get flooded with lobsters

Iirc that's mostly because they spoiled so quickly. That's part of why it was inhumane to feed them to prisoners (the other part was they just ground up the entire lobster).
In fact, many religious food restrictions are based on foods that could easily make you sick, like pork.
- I think it also had to do with the fact that they're bottom feeders, as most fish spoil fairly quickly without proper care (though some are definitely worse than others - I think shark starts going bad literally as soon as the shark dies).
  Like your second point, many bottom feeders are more likely to have parasites and, therefore, probably built up a reputation as being unfit for eating (though lobsters don't have any parasites that I'm aware of).
- Someone told me they don't eat pork because the pigs were at the bottom of the ark and and ate the shit of all the other animals and that is since then canon for me, because it's one of the funniest reasons to not eat pork
My great grandmother grew up rough during the depression and lived near enough you could fish for lobster.
Her family would bury the lobster shells instead of putting them in the trash because they were ashamed the trash collectors might see they were eating sea bugs.
She still definitely enjoyed lobster. When it was in season it was tradition to have a family reunion for lobster dinner, and she boiled a mean sea bug. But she never could fathom even going to a restaurant to order a lobster - and that some people thought it was fancy would make her head explode
- Lobster shells really should go back in the sea. Recycle that calcium (?).
- But she never could fathom even going to a restaurant to order a lobster - and that some people thought it was fancy would make her head explode
  This makes me think of how shredded tuna has become very expensive during my lifetime. It's still not super expensive but it's not dirt cheap either.
  I'm thinking that when I'm old, will I see fancy restaurants serving spaghetti with shredded tuna, accompanied with real parmesan.
  As it used to cost like some cents or something. Like 60 cents € or something for a can, whereas now it's more than 2€.
  Hehe, sea bugs.
- You joke with the sea bug jokes but apparently dishes that use bug meat actually are compared to crab and lobster in taste.
Iirc lobsters can become much much larger than the ones we eat which are lil babies (comparatively speaking). The 2 or so lb lobsters we see are like 5yo but lobsters can live to be 100+ and 15lbs or sumsuch. Maybe the old crotchety ones folks ate back didn't taste as good?
same with quinoa, price went up so much that people started cultivating it outside of its native south America and then the price plummeted so bad that it caused financial devastation among farmers
They were fed to prisoners

Pineapples were also a sign of wealth.

There was a time when people would rent a pineapple to just sit on the table at a party.

Have you watched the new Time Bandits show on Apple TV? It's based on the old movie. There's a whole episode where they fall into a 1700s French socialite party where the Earl of Sandwich--or whatever his name is--has rented a pineapple in order to have a pineapple viewing party. The episode was one of the funniest ones this season, highly recommend it.
- I only saw the first episode, it was ok but it felt too childish for my taste.
ill do you 1 better
- Why is Gamora?

Oysters are, indeed, vastly unappealing as food; however, they're not trash - they're excellent water filters.

Correct, it’s the garbage they store inside their flesh that’s the trash!
- I'm uncomfortable with contemplating the idea of oyster flesh.
- I'm gonna start boiling my old brita filters and selling them as a delicacy.
Imagine opening up a water filter and giving all that goodness inside a good taste
- No.

"Yeah. I really do want a big salty lugee in my mouth" ~ Oyster Enjoyers

For real, that big salty lugee is great! Did you know they're actually alive when you eat them? They also don't have pain receptors IIRC so they're a very ethical source of protein. - actual oyster enjoyer
- ethical
  You eat them alive
  🤔
  Lol I'm not a fan of seafood but I've always found it unnerving that they have eyes
- I like them on occasion, but I prefer them smoked, I think it does wonders to the natural flavors.
  I'd much rather have mussels though (not raw, boiled). Mussels in a oil pasta is fantastic.
I am not a big fan of raw oysters, but if you bake them in the oven with breadcrumbs, cheese and a sauce, they are delicious
- I mean.... The bread, cheese and sauce is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.... Using those 3 you can almost throw anything else in there and it'll be decent.
- Or smoke them. Canned, smoked oysters are fantastic.

I heard a thing in NYC was the immigrants could look for work, and if they didn't find anything they could go to the shore, get enough oysters to survive, and keep going.

So common, NYC streets were often paved with a mix of oyster shells.
- That must've been giving off a wonderful aroma. Especially combined with the cholera squirts of the era and ever present urine stank

Indigenous Americans ate oysters for thousands of years. I guess they were okay with them because it's not like coastal North America was devoid of other food sources.

They are still trash food. So are lobsters.

People who like lobster just like butter and don't want to drink melted butter
- Lobsters are delicious and butter is not even in many of the ways we eat them
- Not true, I also like mayonnaise.

Oysters never tasted good to me. The whole GoT plot in season 7 with the Oyster selling girl stalking people throughout the city, and into a brothel never made sense to me... Who buys oysters, as a impulse snack? Crazy

They used to be a really common snack for rich and poor in coastal areas.
The modern equivalent would be a rolling hot dog stand.
- Except even more practical and simple to produce/distribute in that ... its a coastal town with a good deal of fishing and aquaculture and whatnot going on.
  Arya would just have to go to the docks, find somebody with a huge bag of oysters and say hey, gimme a cart, i'll go roam around and sell these before they spoil, you keep 80 or 90% of the money when i come back with the empty cart.
  In that sense its basically a farmers market: extremely local goods.
  Modern hot dogs have to be manufactured in a factory and then sold to a hot dog stand operator, shipped halfway across the country or world.
- Ok but how funny would that subplot have been if she was pushing a fucking hotdog stand around king's landing and exactly nobody was addressing it as if it wasn't the most normal thing in the world?
Into the brothel makes sense because they have been considered an aphrodisiac.
Oysters were supposedly an aphrodisiac. They aren't but it's been one of those old wives' tales since before I was born.
- Eel as well.
F E R M E N T E D C R A B
I love ousters in all forms. Raw on the half shell, smoked, deep fried, Rockefeller. They sre such tasty little animals

Also also lobster and chicken wings.

Granted lobster was considered poor person food because it spoils fast, and in the days of no refrigerators that was a big deal.
- I've read that the prison food method of lobster preparation was just grinding up a shitload of whole animals. Maybe heads cut off. So it was lobster meat, organ, and shell slurry. Lobster is good but I don't want that.
I still cry for good ten cent wings back in the early nineties :(
In the 1970s, then-president of Mexico Luis Echeverría visited the remote fishing village of Huatulco, slated for touristic development soon after that.
The people of the village prepared a dinner for the president, in an apologetic tone for being so humble and poor, all they had to offer him was lobster.
- Warm water Pacific lobster tastes pretty bad. I made the mistake of ordering it once thinking it was like northern Atlantic lobster. It is not.

I like oysters, but like... 4 per week is fine. If it was staple food for me, I'd cry myself asleep every night.

The most oysters I've ever had was three dozen, in the Baja coastal town of San Quintin. You told the man wearing rubber pants to the waist how many you wanted, he'd wade into the water with a machete in hand, hacked at what essentially was a rock of bunched-up oysters, then waded back to the shore.
He'd plop that heap of oysters on a wooden table, give you a shucking knife, a bunch of lemons, Salsa Búfalo (not for buffalo wings, it was a brand of smoky hot sauce) and salt crackers.
If they had a blue ribbon that said "I ate like a pig in San Quintin", I am not ashamed to say I would have earned it.
- You just reminded me of the crab at Cielito Lindo, a massive pile of legs and claws drowned in spiced butter, a couple of Pacificos with the meal and a glass of Presidente brandy to cap it off. ¡El sabor!
Yup. I prefer them smoked, so I get a can a couple times per year. I honestly don't want more than that.
But when it comes to mussels, load me up! I could eat those multiple times a week and not get bored of them.

And lobster.

Lobster used to be considered a poor man's food.

Poor people had to live on sea bugs.

King Louis XIV loved oysters and was importing them from the coast to his palace in Versailles.

To be fair, both of those are delicious. That said, I haven't had caviar itself (too expensive), but I've had plenty of other fish-egg products, and it's fantastic as a sushi topper or in a salad or something. I also love lobster, crab, and other "weird" foods from the bottom of the ocean.

Maybe I'm trashy, idk.

My grandfather liked black caviar and had it sometimes (it's cheaper than you would think, or was in the 80s). I remember it being mostly just salty. I did not care for it.
- If it's anything like other kinds of fish roe (I don't see any reason why it wouldn't), it's not something to eat on its own, but with something. It basically adds some fresh fishiness to whatever you're eating, for example mild pastas like alfredo or carbonara. I really like fish, so I find it adds some nice flavor to a wide variety of dishes.

Pizza

I recommend listening to The Dollop episode about the New York Oysters. It's crazy (as are most of their episodes!).

https://pca.st/episode/c17659ec-5cab-4530-b4e1-f13a0c6106b0

I can take or leave oysters, but I used to get fried clams at Long John Silver's and they were the shit.

say that to a yinglet [fictional] ;)

Too bad this douchebag uses Twitter.