Last fall, my college roommate, who has a Midwestern background, and her husband came to visit. In the planning, I suggested we have a lobster dinner at my house.
Her first reply was that that would be too expensive, but I explained that I would cook them on my stove and that the meal would be much cheaper than in a restaurant.
She agreed, but I did not know until they showed up at my house that they had never before eaten lobster that had not been picked clean of meat.
Before I prepared the dinner we went down to the lobster pound. I suggested that they come inside and pick out their lobster.
We agreed that a pound and a half was good. The lobsters were crawling around in the tank and were segregated according to size. They hesitated in front of the tank, and so I picked out four medium-sized lobsters.
They came in a bag and when we got home I put them in the refrigerator because we were not eating until my husband came home from work. The bag was loosely closed to give them breathing room, and I stressed the necessity of cooking live lobsters to ensure freshness.
When I opened the refrigerator later, a claw was hanging out of the bag and waving toward us. I showed this to my guest and laughed at the waving claw. My refrigerator must not be as cold as it should be. Then I put on the large pot of hot water and waited for it to come to a boil.
When my husband got home, I turned the stove temperature to high and when it was boiling, he took out the lobsters and dropped them into the water.
Lois and her husband backed away from the kitchen and seemed nervous about this aspect of the dinner.
It was only when they were sitting at the table that I realized they had never had a lobster served this way. We plopped the lobsters on their plates and went through the instructions of how to tackle the beast.
First, I pointed out how to tell if their lobster was female or male by turning it over and inspecting the first feelers after the body, which is called a carapace.
The feathery feelers indicate the female and the hard feelers the male. As we proceeded to rip off the legs and claws, they were a little appalled by the dissection, especially when I tackled the main body and explained that under the lungs and where the largest claw connects to the body is a mine of tender meat.
I felt like they thought I was giving them a biology lesson at the dinner table, and maybe I was.
I hear that lobster from Maine is being sent to China and that the price will not go down after the summer people leave.
I am happy for the lobster fishermen, but will miss this fall treat. Too much lobster? That’s not possible.
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