Over the years, I’ve occasionally eaten “seafood salad”, which my guess is mostly some sort of white fish (or the parts of some sort of white fish that don’t get sold as fillets or steaks) gussied up with a bit of red dye number whatever,r so that you think you’re getting crabmeat, or shrimp, or lobster. (Maybe they throw in the parts of the shrimp that lazy shrimp cocktail eaters don’t bother with.) Hey, add a bit of celery and mayo, a smidge of salt and pepper, and seafood salad is tasty enough. As for what’s in it: don’t ask, don’t tell.
Anyway, I was amused by an article in The New York Times last week on Zabar’s “lobster” salad, which they’ve had on offer for 15 years, but which has never actually contained any lobster.
Zabar’s, for those who neither frequent NYC nor ever read about it nor ever see TV shows and movies that take place there, is an upper West Side deli on steroids – tarted up and expensive, and with a charmingly modest motto - New York is Zabar’s…Zabar’s is New York. A few weeks ago, Zabar’s was caught out by Doug MacCash, a reporter for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
MacCash was vacationing in NYC with his family, when they stopped by Zabar’s for bagels.
Then a tub of lobster salad caught his eye.
At $16.95 a pound, it was a bit pricey.
But, hey, when you’re on vacation. And you’re up North and a lot closer to lobster country (which is where Pink Slip lives), why not indulge a bit?
MacCash enjoyed the treat.
It was delicious, but the pink/orange tails seemed small and somehow familiar.
Then I read the label. The lobster salad ingredients were: wild freshwater crayfish, mayonnaise, celery, salt and sugar.
Wild freshwater crayfish? Really? At $16.95 per pound? (Source: MacCash on NOLA.)
So, in his own words – not to mention the words of Frank Sinatra (Yankees win) and Liza Minnelli (Yankees lose) – MacCash decided to not just start spreading the lobster salad, but to:
Start spreadin' the news. Apparently, if a crayfish gets the right breaks, it can become a New York City lobster.
Certainly, it a crayfish/crawfish/crawdad can make it there, it can make it anywhere.
But just as certainly, the crayfish/crawfish/crawdad might want to make it under its own name.
After all, if it’s good enough for New Orleans…
Meanwhile, The Times stepped into the fray, reporting that:
Mr. MacCash had discovered a fact of New York culinary life that New Yorkers had not: There was no lobster in the lobster salad at Zabar’s.
Then The Bangor Daily News, which, being in Maine, takes lobsters very seriously, stepped in with an editorial entitled “No Fake Lobsters Allowed.”
Zabar’s initially defended themselves:
“If you go to Wikipedia,” [president Saul Zabar] said, “you will find that crawfish in many parts of the country is referred to as lobster.”
Whatever else, you gotta love an 83 year old guy who knows enough to get his info from Wikipedia.
He read aloud the beginning of the Wikipedia entry for crawfish: “Crayfish, crawfish, or crawdads — members of the superfamilies Astacoidea and Parastacoidea — are freshwater crustaceans resembling small lobsters, to which they are related.”
Then why did the ingredients listed admit to crawfish, rather than say “lobster”?
Perhaps because you can charge more for “lobster salad” than you can for “crawfish salad.”
And why, after all these years, have not the sophisticated, discerning, Zabar-shopping New Yorkers called Zabar’s on it?
Apparently, a couple of folks had, but not enough to get Zabar’s to change its labeling ways.
Then Zabar’s got a call from the Maine Lobster Council, which holds that equating crawfish with lobster is akin to “saying trout and minnows were in the fish family.”
Enough was enough, so Zabar’s decided to rename their salad as “seafare salad”, which is enough of a made-up name that it could be anything that comes from the sea. Even though crayfish don’t actually come from the sea – they’re fresh water critters. See how confusing life can get?
As a New Englander, I’m a big believer that, when it comes to lobsters, accept no substitutes. Our kind of lobster – not crayfish, not “langoustines” (whatever they are). And not served lazy-man, or just the tail, or in (gag) Newburgh sauce. Just good old New England lobster, boiled and served with drawn butter and lemon. Yum! Or in lobster bisque. Or in lobster salad – the real deal, not this fake crayfish nonsense.
Having worked at Durgin-Park and the Union Oyster House, I am quite adept at eating a lobster: twisting off the tail, poking the meat through, cracking the claws. I will confess, however, that I’m not a big one for sucking out the legs, which do tend to be watery.
Another thing I’m a purist on is fried clams. Just say no to clam strips. If a clam doesn’t have a belly, it ain’t no clam to me!
Making me hungry just writing this.
Ah, the delights of summer in New England.
As for Zabar’s: tsk, tsk.
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