Today I bought a live lobster. I've been meaning to try one for a while. I haven't really been able to figure out where to buy them. Today I got thinking about it again, but failed to find a local restaurant with Google or the yellow pages that advertises lobster. Finally I called a local grocery store sort of known for having a good selection of higher priced commodities. They have a seafood department even. Turned out that they not only had lobster, but they had live lobster (apparently lobster is best if it's cooked alive). So I just sort of bought one on impulse, knowing that if I didn't I would probably chicken out.

So I now have a live lobster. They put it in a Styrofoam box, covered it with some kind of paper, then poured seawater from the tank over the paper, and poked a couple of holes in the lid. I initially left it on my counter (read: freezer) for a good 4 hours when I got home. I could swear that I read that you shouldn't refrigerate them, but perhaps it was actually freezing them that was bad (I know that freezing them is bad for sure). According to at least one (two) sources online it is OK to refrigerate them and also necessary to keep them overnight. So I finally put the Styrofoam box in the fridge. Every 15 or 30 minutes I can hear the thing rubbing or digging against the Styrofoam. It's a little bit weird, but tolerable, as long as it isn't hurting me in any way whatever it's doing.

I've done a little bit of research in the past about how to prepare them and stuff. I read that you should boil them (alive), and optionally might want to put them in the freezer briefly before putting them in the pot to prevent screaming. I guess it slows their body down so that they don't realize what's happening. I'm not sure. In any case, then apparently you boil them (I forget the details: type of water, how long, when you know they're done, etc.). I'll have to research again to figure out how exactly I should do it. I'm more concerned about utensils... I don't have many and am afraid I won't have the tools necessary to get the meat from within the shell. At least, not without a lot of fuss and mess.

In any case, Allegro.cc is pretty far stretched, so I was wondering if any members here have experience eating and/or cooking lobster. Any advice would be appreciated. I'm not sure what type of lobster it is, but it's only about a pound^[1] so I'm assuming it is a Maine variety, though I don't really know where it came from. Or anything about it, for that matter. Help.

DOH!

I have actually never eaten lobster, so I can't give you any advice. To me, lobster is one of them fancy dishes like caviar or sumpthin' like 'at. bam, you eatin' fancy!

[edit] I do have some friends that eat lobster from time to time... they say 1) it's messy and 2) don't try and be clean about it. They cover the table with newspaper to make the cleanup easier.

Did you buy it at a pet shop?

You're going to put your pet lobster into boiling water then eat it??

You throw them into boiling water (alive), apparently the shock kills them quickly. The cruel thing to do is to put it in cold water and cook it slowly.

That's about what I know about the issue. I could never eat something I'd have to kill first (well, maybe if I were starving, but given a choice, I'll pass) and I have no desire to eat something that lived under water anyway (seafood = cat food in my world).
I've always thought having a lobster in an aquarium would be rather neat though.

I suppose it is a little bit weird. People are animals too. That said, it is natural (and necessary) for animals on Earth to kill other animals for consumption. I don't really mind the killing part. It might be a little bit weird to handle it (i.e., pick it up, etc.), but I imagine that I will get used to it quite easily. I'm more concerned about actually carving it open and cleaning it out.

I rather enjoy seafood (or more generally fish and other aquatic animals, I suppose). I haven't had a lot of varieties, but I have enjoyed what I have had. So far I've had a few local fish species (lake trout, pike, perch, and minnows, ... ?), a few frozen species (e.g., Alaskan Pollock, Tilapia), and canned fish (tuna and salmon). I rather like it all, and I consider lobster to be similar in nature to shrimp, even if not scientifically related^[1], so I wanted to give it a try. I would have preferred for it to be prepared by an expert who could teach me to eat it, but I guess I will have to make do.

Note that we have no culinary experts here.

I've never tried it, but from what I've read:

• Refrigerating them is pointless - they're alive, so keeping them in seawater is all that's required to keep them fresh

• You can throw them into boiling water alive, but the most humane way of killing them is to put them in the freezer (I just don't remember how long it takes for them to die there); if done right, the quality doesn't suffer at all. IIRC, cooking them alive is considered animal cruelty and illegal in some countries.

• shrimp and lobster are both decapoda, so they're about as related as a penguin is to an ostrich

• Lobster is good, but not as good as it's hyped up to be - it tastes a lot like shrimp, with a slightly more elaborate seawater taste to it

To make things worse, lobsters are basically the spiders of the sea, too. Horrible little things.

(Also, as a side note: I wouldn't want to kill what I'm about to eat either. But I'm not about to confuse my own squeamishness for moral imperative.)

I've cooked crayfish (the NZ term for lobster) quite a few times. It isn't necessary to cook them alive, just keep them alive as long as possible before cooking. You can kill them by putting them in the freezer for a couple of hours, though this will (obviously) freeze them. Alternatively, 20-30 minutes in the freezer will put them into a deep sleep, and a sharp knife to the brain will finish them off.

I prefer to grill or barbecue them myself, but I have boiled them a couple of times. The time can vary on size, but 10-15 minutes is all it takes. Just wait until their shells start changing colour, cook for another minute, then plunge into cold water to stop them cooking further.

Simple salted water will do, but I usually add some garlic and lemon juice.

To be specific: rock lobster or spiny lobster. Why New Zealanders call them "crayfish" when that's also another species entirely I don't think I'll ever know...

Regular fish are known to be tastier if killed just before cooking, so I'd imagine the same applies to lobster. Refrigerating live cold blooded creatures (even in seawater) should lower their metabolism to allow them to get by without food longer, and I'd suppose warm water might need to be aerated.

Absolutely. I didn't say there was anything wrong with it, just that I couldn't do it myself.
Fortunately modern society lets me pay someone else to do things I don't want to do.

maybe you should get your mommy to handle this one for you sweety

Lobster murder

I've watched enough food channel to qualify here!

I've purchased live lobster a couple of times. I always bought it the same day I cooked it, so I have no recommendations for keeping it alive.

It's easy. I followed instructions taken from the Internet. You boil a giant pot of water, then drop him in alive and leave him there for 10-15 minutes, depending on size. ^[Linky] [edit: Just realized Lenny said the same thing]

Then remove the exoskeleton from your sea insect and dip it's fleshy innards in garlic butter and enjoy.

I did run into information about this on the Internet, and I disregarded it. The screaming bit is untrue, and when you drop them into the water they're dead within moments. Animals like these do not even have the pain sensory systems that humans do. They often lose limbs in battles over territory, mating, etc. So you're really just sparing them from the cruelty of the wild.

I've toyed with the idea of growing adorable, pure white, lagomorphs for consumption. However, I was really just playing with the idea of shock value. It's more acceptable to slaughter lobsters than it is to slaughter adorable bunnies, and I was thinking of the ramifications of opening a "pick your own rabbit" store (to constrast the "pick your own lobster" seafood places here).

The cuteness of an animal seems more important than anything else when considering animal cruelty.

(the funny thing is I'm really considering going back to being a vegetarian!)

That argument should be good enough to satisfy the subset of vegetarians who happily kill little human babies.

Sparing the babies the ordeal of McDonalds?

Better dead than Red! (meat)

With the exception that humans have a complex somatosensory system which includes pain, and lobsters do not.

They claim the babies cannot feel pain either, so they'll be in full agreement with you regarding the lobster eating! That assumes, of course, they are into recycling and being resourceful (etc) and wouldn't like to see the lobster go to waste after you mercifully ended its (in your judgment) sure-to-be-sucky life.

I bought a pre-cooked whole lobster at the store once. I like lobster but having to disect one to get the food part out is sort of disgusting. I don't think I would get a whole lobster again but its fun to eat at a restaurant.

My thoughts on lobster/crustaceans exactly.

They don't think you're so hot either.

I just didn't get a chance to introduce you to the wonderful world of lobster sex.

...Until now!

I don't have sea water. I might have been able to purchase some at the grocery store, but I'm new to this so I didn't. Also, I live nowhere near the sea.

I've heard of the freezer thing, but I don't think the purpose is to kill them. I think the purpose is to slow their system down so their bodies can't really know what's happening when you drop them in the pot. Of course, I've also seen numerous chefs (of actual restaurants, presumably American) both dropping live lobster into boiling water and insisting that they've never heard one complain yet. I'm sure it's a wives' tale that they scream. Perhaps the freezer thing is only for very lively/frisky ones that are difficult to handle otherwise? In any case, I highly doubt that it's illegal to cook them alive in Canada or the USA. It can't be any more cruel than cutting the throat of a turkey or smashing the brain of cattle. Perhaps the only difference is that I'm doing it myself instead of an evil farmer.

Yeah, I think the only reason I consider them related is because they're both considered somewhat "fancy" or "expensive" food in American media (i.e., it's the kind of thing that you would see rich people eating in a movie, not your average American family).

That sounds good to me. I also have a frozen ring of shrimp (with cocktail sauce) in my freezer to eat eventually. I rather love shrimp so I hope I'll also really enjoy this lobster. Hopefully it doesn't put me off too much having to take it apart and clean it myself. When you ate lobster was it at a restaurant? Did they just bring you the pure meat or did they bring you the shell (as some restaurants do) and make you break it all open to get to the meat? And have you tried the tomalley? Apparently they discourage its consumption now due to contamination of the oceans, but then lobster lovers insist that it's the best part... I don't know if I'd be able to do it though since I'd be actually pulling it right out of the lobster's body.

We have things that we call crayfish here, and they do look something like tiny lobsters. I assume you are actually talking about what we would call lobsters then and not what we call crayfish?

It doesn't really seem like you benefit at all with killing them before cooking. Do you personally consider it more humane to kill them like that instead of dropping them into the pot?

I saw YouTube video guy suggest this, which confused me because no others had. Are you supposed to eat lobster meat cold or warm or hot? Is it subjective (personal preference) or is there a specific right thing to do? :-/

I had no salt at all so I went out and bought a box of "Mediterranean sea salt". Hopefully that will suffice... :-X I also bought a couple of lemons, but I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing with them yet.

I don't think it's really any different than fishing, which I've done many times before. We generally just throw the fish on the ice and let them slowly die there. To my knowledge, there's nothing illegal or "wrong" about that. I guess we just figure the animals don't have "feelings" or "conscious minds" like us and don't consider it cruel. In any case, wilderness can be pretty cruel too, so I don't see why we should hold ourselves to a higher standard just because we do have the mental capacity to fear for ourselves like we do. A bear will still tear you to pieces under the right circumstances whether or not you humanely kill your lobster. :P As long as you're doing it for food and not to be cruel/seek some kind of sick pleasure from it then I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with it. Lobsters strike me as a type of animal that probably won't feel much in the time it takes them to die.

\o/

Sounds consistent so far. :)

;D

So far I have heard of a few various techniques. Seems there are shell crackers that you can get, similar to nut crackers. Others seem to prefer using sheers or scissors to cut the shell open. Others apparently just use a knife and twist to crack the shell. Any advice regarding that?

I've also read that there is some meat within the midsection, but it's not very much so some people choose not to bother (as it is the more "disgusting" part of the animal, I suppose). Any experience with that?

Places People

I have a pot on the stove full of water and I'm about to begin boiling it. Then I'm going to pour in a random amount of sea salt (somewhere close to a table spoon or until I feel the water is sufficiently salty). The actual volume of water is unknown to me so I'll be mostly guessing with the salt as well. While that boils I will be opening the Styrofoam box to check on the lobster (see if it is still alive, make sure it hasn't made any kind of disgusting messes in there, etc.). Once the water is boiling I will then put it into the water. :o Wish me luck.

You use real seawater to keep it alive until cooking, not to cook the lobster in!

I've always understood that any sound they make is due to air bubbles being vented from between their carapace. Could still just be a story though.

Don't think it is.

Well, animals certainly do have feelings and there is such a thing as being cruel to animals. Now here's why you may not want to subject an animal to a great deal of stress before killing it if you plan to eat it afterwards: the hormones released by stress can supposedly spoil the taste of the meat. That may be yet another story, but there seems no real reason to not kill an animal quickly.

Didn't say there was.
When I say I couldn't do it myself it has nothing to do with being morally superior or thinking it's cruel. I just think it's gross and will gladly pay someone else to do it for me.

EDIT: Oh, check if regular cutlery will do or whether you need something special to crack the shell and/or the claws. I think there are special tools for that, but maybe a nut-cracker will do.

I used a good set of scissors for cutting down the center. I wasn't afraid to make a mess by ripping through the claws and limbs with my bare hands. Cracking those parts with a shell cracker (or a nut cracker if it's a large lobster) is a far better alternative, though.

White is right!

Some people eat every bit, even the eyes. I discarded anything that looked like it would have a poor mouth feel and recommend the same. If it doesn't look anything like tail meat, it probably doesn't taste anything like tail meat.

The tail is the easy part and has the best meat, and is why a lot of people just buy the tails instead of the whole creature.

I just read that and they recommended removing the claw ties before cooking the thing (i.e., while it's still alive). Every other source I've heard from recommends that you keep the claws clamped as they can and might do some serious harm to you if you're not extremely careful. We can't all be Steve Irwin, people.

Append

The water is boiling. It's go-time!

Append

I'm a bad, bad man. OK, so I filled the pot without really measuring (it's hard to find a definitive amount of water anyway). Basically I just made sure there was enough water to cover the lobster. Then as the water was boiling I worried that the volume of lobster might overflow the boiling water so I used a large coffee cup to pull some water out of the pot. I then dropped the live lobster into it by hand. The bastard didn't fit. The claws/arms fell straight to the bottom of the pot and kept the body/tail out of the water. I ended up having to reverse my previous procedure to add some more (very hot, filtered) tap water to the pot. I'm going to Hell, aren't I?

I think I might have overcooked it a bit. The claws look somewhat darker red than the rest of the body. I'm not sure. As soon as it cools enough to handle I plan to start trying to break the meat out. I'll have to make due with a knife/scissor set since I don't really have any other tools to use. If those don't work I'll have to see if my brother next door has any that will work.

Wish me luck. It's about to get messy.

It's about time for bambam's legendary buyer's remorse to kick in.

Good grief. That sounds like an awful lot of pain. I'd have just stuck in on a BBQ.

An axe?

@Derezo: Is it normal to have white creamy substance in the claws or does that suggest that I didn't cook it long enough? Do I eat that or discard it?

Discard the entire overgrown insect and get a steak.

Good luck

I had to reread that a few times. I kept getting fist instead of fish

Anywho, I've never cooked lobster myself, however my father has. He prefers to steam it and not boil it. Says it tastes better. I wouldn't honestly know as I refuse to eat ocean bugs. Also they do scream when steamed, in the sense that the screaming is actually steam escaping from their shell.

Sorry for the late reply, you probably have cooked and eaten the thing by now. I used to work at one of the oldest seafood restaurants in Boston, so I know a thing or two. I have never heard a lobster scream when I put one in a pot, I did see one defecate on a table though. Tap water is fine for boiling, leave them in until they float, assuming the pot is big enough for that. You can broil them, stuffing them with langostinos and potato chip crumbs, baste them in butter and turn them over every so often, until red. When the meat is white and firm, they will be done. As for the rubber bands, you can leave them on, but take them off before you eat the lobster.

Fortunately I discovered a #cooking channel on freenode that helped out a bit. Apparently the white substance is blood that turns white when cooked. Apparently it's safe to eat. It's supposed to be mostly tasteless, and indeed I ate some off of my finger and it seemed mostly tasteless.

Nice.

That was one of the things I feared most. If I found a mess in the box when I opened it I probably would have inconspicuously chucked it in the dumper and showered ...

The pot wasn't really big enough. It just barely fit the lobster. It turns out I was mistaken about the size thing. Looking more closely at the label it appears that the lobster was 0.9x kg, which is just over 2 lbs, as I thought originally. The price corresponds to that too, thankfully. I'm not sure why the label says "size 1 - 1.25 lbs", but meh... In any case, I waited about 9-10 minutes, and the lobster seemed red so I removed the pot from heat and put the lobster on the counter.

I don't know what you just said there, but it sounds like extra work.

How do you know when the meat is white? Or did you remove the meat before cooking?

I discovered that there is quite a bit of tension in the rubber bands. The first one went flying across the room. Fortunately, not into my eye. Interestingly, the shell is also very inflexible and attempting to cut into it leads to a lot of tension. A few good pieces went rocketing across my kitchen (again, fortunately not into my eye). I did manage to cut myself trying to break into the arms by hand. At this point I basically have the whole thing opened up. I have scooped most of the tomalley into a glass. I tasted it off my fingers (direct from the "body cavity") a few times and I'm not sure yet how I feel about it. It's "different". The fact that I scooped it out of an animal that was alive a couple of hours ago probably has gotten to my nerves a bit. Maybe I'll enjoy it more with lemon juice and/or lobster meat. We'll see. It seems that I yielded about a cereal bowl worth of meat from this 2 lb lobster. I've so far only really eaten a smaller pincher worth of meat. And maybe another crumb. It does taste good though. It is quite a bit of mess though. When the smoke clears I figure I'll be cleaning the kitchen all night, partly due to inexperience.

Horrible Idea

I wouldn't want to disappoint anyone. I failed... The meat seemed good originally; the couple of pieces that I tasted while I cut it open. I think I did two things wrong: I took way too long to eat the meat and I microwaved it to try to warm it up. It took me probably a good 2 or 3 hours to get the lobster all carved up and the meat extracted. I finally got the "carcass" thrown away and decided to melt some margarine (I don't have butter) in the same dish to eat it with. I did this while I took the Styrofoam box down to the dumpster. When I got back I excitedly grabbed the meat from the microwave and went to take a bite. To my horror it didn't break off nice and soft. It refused to come apart. It was rubbery... I couldn't even try to eat it. I think the meat was ruined... Ugh. I haven't given up on lobster, but I don't think I'll attempt to cook it again until I've tried it at an actual restaurant. It's going to be a real bitch to clean the kitchen now. I've mostly cleaned up the mess from the lobster, but I already had a stack of dishes waiting to be cleaned and this just pushed me over the edge. In any case, since cutting the lobster up sent spray and shell everywhere I'll have a fun time trying to clean it all up amongst my appliances and such. >:(

WTF? Rip into it while it's still hot, and eat it as you extract the meat. If you can't get in to a part of the shell, smash it with something hard/heavy... a hammer?

Wow, that is a high-end grocery store!

I've seen people use pliers before.

I usually only kill them first as I usually BBQ them rather than dropping them in a pot, and I don;t want them to tun away.

My first thoughts were... "Creamy? "

Mine have always looked like this:
{"name":"6a00d83451f83a69e20120a548737c970c-500wi","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/4\/24160dabaa4196a28e0593df6134a160.jpg","w":500,"h":278,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/2\/4\/24160dabaa4196a28e0593df6134a160"}

Those spines can be a bitch! I'm a delicate barbarian when it comes to that stuff.

Nooooo!

Nooooo!!

Good luck next time.

You're supposed to do that while you're eating it.
At least that's my experience of being at a table with people who are eating lobster.

EDIT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axDtj2bSduM
(Sorry about the quality, best I could find).

EDIT2: embedding of external video not working?

It seems to not like some videos.

Also, I forgot to mention earlier about the plunging into cold water to stop further cooking - it's only a brief (ten seconds or so) plunge, so the flesh stays hot.

You should never microwave meat. Period.

I have never seen shrimp referred to as fancy. They cost about the same per pound as beef around here. (Lobster, on the other hand, is like $26/lb.)

I suppose that cooking shrimp is similar to lobster, scallops, etc, in that if you overcook them -- as you discovered -- they get rubbery. I hope that next time you try it you have the proper utensils (at least a shell cracker) and can enjoy it better.

Wasn't it in family guy or the simpsons where somebody got a lobster and it turned into their best friend (no, not homer's pig). Or maybe a film. It's definitely something.

But, what's wrong with killing it humanely like chopping it's head off or stabbing it in the heart rather than letting it boil to death, though whether they have no nervous system to feel pain I don't know.

!. Extra work yes, but worth it if you have a good potato chip stuffing recipe.
2.You won't know if the meat is white and firm without cutting the lobster. I threw it out there as part of the broiling/ bbq recipe.
Scallops are good, bread them and broil/ bake them in white wine and butter. I think I'll have some this week. As for shrimp, when you cook them yourself, remember to remove the vein.

I agree that microwaving seafood is probably a bad idea (I did it as a desperate attempt to salvage the lobster), but for other meats it comes in very handy. For example, sloppy joe meat. Sure, you could go to the trouble of heating it back up in a pan, but it only takes like 45 seconds in the microwave, and no extra dishes! Of course the meat can dry out if you microwave it too long, but otherwise I see no harm in it at all.

If that were true I would eat it a lot more often. It's nowhere near as expensive as lobster, but it's not quite as cheap as beef.

As do I. I don't think I'll try it again until I've tried it in a restaurant though, which could be a while since I don't think there are any restaurants nearby that serve it.

Their head is wrapped in the exoskeleton too so I'm not sure how humanely you could remove it and if they have hearts they must be pretty small because I didn't see any.

Today I woke up feeling pretty sick. I'm not sure if it was the little bit of lobster that I consumed (it was enough to give me strong gas all night and morning though) or if it was something else (afterward I made a ton of fries since the lobster was ruined and might have made too many to fully cook on the baking sheet).

I cook my entire chicken at once to save time and energy. I refrigerate the left overs (most of it), and microwave it the next time I eat. It's very cheap (I eat chicken almost every night) and tastes great with a bit of seasoning.

Spending lots of money on food is stupid. It all looks the same (basically) on the way out. My monthly groceries are:

• milk

• orange juice

• cereal and oatmeal (breakfast)

• eggs (lunch)

• chicken (dinner)

• vegetables (corn, green beans, peas, etc)

• fruits (apples, bananas)

• string / shredded mozzarella cheese

The cost of one lobster is probably half my monthly grocery bill.

What do you do with the soggy feathers? and feet.

But it all tastes different on the way in. You should watch Ratatouille, the rat explains it in that movie!

(I didn't actually care for that movie myself. )

Food either tastes bad or it doesn't. Nothing I eat tastes bad (because I don't eat anything that tastes bad).

I eat pretty much anything, but ideally I'd like to be vegetarian. Not for moral reasons (there's nothing wrong with killing things), but I felt a lot better when I was a vegetarian.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Consumers-Benefit-From-Vegetable-Fillers-in-Taco-Bell-Meats&id=5821045

Now I'm confused...

That article claims lean ground beef contains 62% fat. Not only does that sound like total BS, but Wolfram Alpha disagrees, giving a much more sensible 14%.

ezinearticles.com is a spam site that exists solely to provide legitimate-looking links to one's own web site. It's basically just a blog that anyone can write for.

Yeah, total crap. Taco Bell doesn't serve any meat.

One of my cousins tried a vegetarian lifestyle, he lost his hair and his skin went white, he looked bad. He may not have been getting enough protein. There are beans, possibly soy that can fulfill that requirement. I don't mind eating a vegetarian meal once in a while, but I can't do it constantly. I'd miss a good rib dinner too much.

Fact: I've been eating a lot of crunch peanut butter lately.

It is a dangerous thing to do, you have to be careful not just about the amount of protein you take in, but the type of protein you get. If you're eating all grains, you're not getting all of the essential amino acids.

I'm not going vegan though, or raw food or any of those expensive, extreme and difficult diets. Just cut out the flesh, drink more milk and eat more nuts, eggs, beans and drink a whey protein shake.

Next time COOK that chicken in the microwave and see how it turns out

I tried a vegan diet once. Didn't really know what I was doing. I took a few extra vitamins but I ended up having absolutely no energy after a while (and I cheated on my diet sometimes too with meat when I felt sick, which is probably a good thing). At the time I was working as a carpenter and no energy+carpentry don't really mix. I decided I was going to have to quit my job when my health became really bad. It didn't take long to recover though. But before you do something like go on a vegan/vegetarian only diet make sure you know exactly what you're doing and that you're going to get all of the right vitamins and minerals from a well planned diet. And that is not an easy thing to do.

What really angers the fuck out of me is parents who try to raise small children, even infants, on vegan diets. Those people need to have the kid taken away from them until they learn to be responsible parents.

I do know a lot about it, I was vegetarian for almost a year and maintained the same weight. It was a very gassy year.

I don't cut out milk/eggs, which is where the vegans really get hurt. There's a lot of good stuff in there that just doesn't grow on trees.

My ex is a vegan for quite a long while.. Wouldn't say it looked like bad for hear.. Although eating less pan cakes would be better than not eating meat, in my eyes..

PINCHY!