At all times, seafood is excellent demonstrated fashion trends in restaurants. So, 150 years ago, a lobster was considered a “garbage fish”, from which cheap dishes were prepared for prisoners and children in shelters. Today it is one of the most expensive positions.
According to the publication Marine and Coastal Fisheries, the researchers found that the price of the northern tuberculate tortoise grew by almost 1000%. With the growth of popularity, she incredibly quickly came to almost complete commercial disappearance.
“The same thing happened to the sea eye on the West Coast,” explains Glenn A. Jones, a professor at the Texas A & M University in Galveston. “Originally a dish that nobody cares about, it gradually became one of the most expensive in the menu. But the tuberculate turtle is a special case. Its history stretched for 125 years, and at its peak it became an indispensable item in the menu of oriental restaurants: a terapin in Maryland dish, similar to a roast. It cost three times as much as a lobster or a swordfish today with inflation in mind. ” “Noticeable consumption”
Jones and Dr Raven Walker, a student, say that the popularity of the northern tuberculate tortoise is an ideal example of “conspicuous consumption” (a term fixed by economist Thorstein Veblen in 1899). In short: the theory says that the more expensive an item, the more popular it becomes, the price for it can very quickly grow to an incredible size.
“For a time, fish markets sold dozens of northern tubercle tortoises, the only brackish-turtled turtle that lived along the East Coast. In the early 1900s, it was sold at retail, and ordering terrapina in Maryland would cost about 100 today’s dollars, “says Jones. – Prices fell around 1916-1917, by 1940, demand was almost gone, and by 1970 the tortoise had completely disappeared from the menu. Very few people know that this turtle was eaten or that it was one of the most expensive marine delicacies in the last 150 years. We have not seen her on the menu for at least 40 years. ”
Dry law or something else?
“Literature basically links the decline of the terrapin market with dry law, since at that time it was no longer possible to get sherry, which was the necessary ingredient for cooking the roast. Nevertheless, our studies showed that the recession began before the adoption of the dry law in 1920, which means that the initial market decline occurred for other reasons, – says Walker. “We found out that this is more related to the Food and Fuel Control Act of 1917, which called for a change in eating habits and redirected food supplies to the front during the Second World War. This could have a greater impact on the inclusion of the turtle in the restaurant’s menu and its availability on the market, since it has been since that time that “conspicuous consumption” has been condemned. ”
Walker hopes to use “conspicuous consumption” so that people start eating lionfish – an invasive species of fish that harms the ecosystems of the Caribbean islands and the Gulf of Mexico.
