Chefs in Portland discover a 'one in 100 million' lobster in their seafood delivery

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By VT

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Although I agree that bacon, sausages and all that are delicious, I'm not so sure I'm going to eat much pork in the future. While we'll (rightly) recoil in disgust at the notion of eating dog or cat meat, pigs are just as lovely, not to mention a bit smarter than your average pet to boot.

Plus, thanks to their chemical and anatomical makeup, pork is also one of the closest tastes you'll get to human meat (something backed up by some of our most prolific cannibals). Long story short: if pigs had sweat glands (the lack of which necessitates them rolling around in mud all of the time), I'd definitely have one as a pet.

We decide to eat them for slightly arbitrary reasons, but for me, they're just too interesting to eat. Feel free to accuse me of fake news so you don't have to feel guilty for wanting that bacon sandwich, but I'm sure there are plenty of animals that we'd feel bad eating if we knew just how cool they were. Case in point: this lobster.

The Scales restaurant out in Portland, Maine is a massive fan of its seafood, getting a seafood delivery last week as is customary. But their haul of fish, shrimp and squid was this week outshone by a pretty special lobster. Found in the net was a 1.5-pound, 'cotton candy' lobster, which the restaurant affectionately decided to call Blue Betty.

Scales co-chef Travis Olson said that Betty was well-loved by both customers and staff, and thanks to her unique colour, executive chef Fred Eliot admitted he didn't have the heart to eat her. “It was just too interesting to cook it,” Eliot said. “It was almost translucent.”

Initially, Scales had decided to keep Blue Betty in a tank like they usually did with the other lobsters, but Betty turned out to be pretty feisty and honestly, kind of a jerk - lunging at any fingers that dared tap at the glass separating her from the outside world. “She was pretty feisty,” Eliot revealed of the unusual lobster. “Some people started calling her bubbles because she was foaming at the mouth.”

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After putting the decision to the people, it was decided that Blue Betty would be released back into the ocean, where she would be free to be her colourful self and hopefully not bite anyone. Along with his wife Anne, Travis Olson rowed out to Cow Island in Casco Bay to free Blue Betty, but no matter how far she swims, she'll never be forgotten by this Portland establishment.

According to the University of Maine’s Lobster Institute (yep, that's a real thing), blue lobsters are extremely rare, with a one in two million-chance of turning out that way. Yellow lobsters are one in 30 million, while a blue and yellow lobster like Blue Betty is a one in 100 million chance. So, there's a decent chance that we'll never see a crustacean like her again in our lifetimes.