American Magazine, July 2015

NON-PROFIT ORG
US POSTAGE PAID
BURLINGTON, VT 05401
WASHINGTON, DC 20016-8002
PERMIT NO. 604
Address Service Requested
For information regarding the
accreditation and state licensing of
American University, please visit
american.edu/academics.
DECONSTRUCTED
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.
Get your (lobster) tails in gear and enter to win a lobster roll kit for
four from Lobster Place. Email answer to magazine@american.edu
or tweet us at @au_americanmag by August 15.
In 2013 US lobster landings (the total weight of the catch) tipped the scales
at 149,762,251 pounds—worth a whopping $461,818,967. But there’s more to
lobsters than girth and worth. 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 more than 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.