lobstah!

[topaz]

lobstah!, originally uploaded by qwrrty.

M. liked it well enough but found it enough hassle that he decided he didn't want to eat lobster at home again.

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Growing up in Salisbury, MD, meant that we were close enough to the Chesapeake Bay to go crabbing and catch our own dinner. Mind you, this was 30 years ago or so and I believe that private crabbing is no longer legal (and certainly no longer advisable, considering the crap that the bay is full of these days and that the crab population was getting smaller and smaller and in danger of disappearing). But I digress.

I remember regularly bringing the crabs home and dumping them in the bathtub while we prepared the pot of water to boil them. And at the time, cooking them wasn't something I loved to be a part of but I dealt with it (my dad LOVED to boil the little guys). Nowadays, I'm not sure I could deal with the cooking, which means I'm not sure I could deal with the eating. I guess that would go for lobster too. I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but I can't get around what must be a really lousy way to die. [shudders]

Such a pity; shellfish is yummy.

[gothtique.livejournal.com]

I can't get over them looking like giant ocean going cock roaches... you step on it, it goes crunch... it must be a bug!
My kids have never had Lobster (or shellfish) but they love to watch them in the tanks at the store. Not sure how they feel about actually having to cook and eat one.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but I can't get around what must be a really lousy way to die.

I dispatched 'em first with a sharp knife, if that helps. (I doubt they died any more painfully than your average cow, and with far more primitive nervous systems.)

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Actually, that helps an awful lot. Thanks for telling me that such was possible. In the context of cooking crabs, they *must* be cooked alive. If they die before they are cooked, the bacteria in their bodies multiplies far too quickly and the meat starts to rot almost instantly. One can tell, from the texture of the meat, if the crab was dead before cooking. And it can make a person violently ill to eat it.

I never heard of dispatching a crab before throwing it in the pot and having it work out ok, but if it's possible, I'd be all for it. And I'd do it myself.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

I really don't think they can rot sufficiently in the 30 seconds between death and the boiling water. :) If you Google "how to kill a crab", you'll find several methods of anesthetizing or euthanizing crabs before boiling, including:

* freezing (plastic bag, ~2 hours) or immersion in ice water before dropping in the pot (renders them unconscious before cooking)
* cleaving down the middle with a sharp cleaver (destroys both centers of the nervous system)
* euthanizing with an ice pick or screwdriver in one or two points beneath the carapace

I don't like the idea of boiling them alive either, even if they are essentially bugs — and even if it didn't bother me several authorities believe that it toughens the meat! So I read up on the knife-dispatch method, decided if I was gonna eat the things I could damn well have enough gonads to kill 'em myself, and did it. It wasn't hugely gory, either, so take heart :}

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

decided if I was gonna eat the things I could damn well have enough gonads to kill 'em myself, and did it.


Yep. Sing it. That's how I see it. Any squeamishness I might have comes from the imagined pain I might be causing. I'm all for doing the deed if it diminishes that pain (though I see from other comments that even said presence of pain is questionable).

Thanks for these; I'm going to keep this post for reference. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

I love how they both have that look on their face like "Dude. There's a giant bug on the counter....and Mom and Dad expect me to -eat- that?!?" -H...

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

There's another photo of M stroking the lobster with an almost tender expression on his face. He knew it was basically a big bug but he also knew that it was a living thing and wasn't sure how to feel about that. We'll tell him about some of this discussion, but I'm not sure how well he'll be able to absorb it.

[ceo]

I once watched someone prep a lobster for grilling, which you do by slicing it into two halves, lengthwise.

Both halves started trying to scuttle away independently. OK, anything with that primitive a nervous system is one step removed from being a plant.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

That's consistent with what we saw. One of our cookbooks recommends killing the lobster before boiling by cutting the head in half lengthwise. keyne volunteered (I totally do not have the spine to kill my own food). Immediately upon being bi-headed, the thing started to crawl forward off the counter. We thought somehow we must have done it wrong, and keyne chopped again and dunked it in the pot.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

A fellow cook told me of the first time she cooked a lobster. She had no idea what she was doing but wanted to impress her new spouse. She laid out her tools - pot o water, knife, cutting board, etc - removed the rubber bands from the claw, then turned away to get something else.

When she turned around, the lobster had grabbed the (very sharp) kitchen knife and was menacing her with it!

She shrieked and ran out of the kitchen, and wasn't sure what the hell to do next. Fortunately a neighbor rescued her and subdued the lobster. Now she knows 1) not to remove the rubber bands and 2) to read all the instructions before starting to cook.

[noeltheone.livejournal.com]

Around the restaurant we usually would take off the bands before steaming them, because other wise the bands tended to melt onto the claws, which made for a less than appetizing presentation.

(We also used to have fun watching them claw through carrot sticks.) Interestingly, most of the gripping power they have is hydraulic, so they really do create a lot of force.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I just had to say how much I adore this story. I have told it to two or three people in the last couple of days.

DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN DOOMED LOBSTER

[moontoad.livejournal.com]

As far as crustaceans and pain go, they haven't even been able to prove that more advanced fishes are able to process possible pain signals as such. That is, when they cause a fish what we would assume causes pain, they are unable to prove that fish actually respond because it feels like pain to them. They may respond to stimulus, but for a variety of reasons they can't say they are responding because it hurts. http://www.rspca.org.au/events/seminars04_proc.pdf start reading page 14 about pain in fishes.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

That was much better written than the subsequent article on pain in crustaceans, though both of them boiled down to "we don't know enough; more research is needed"!