But there are those who, even though they love to eat lobster, have a hard time with killing their dinner right in the kitchen. Not to mention the work it takes to get to the meat.
To me, that's the Maine experience--cracking the claws, sucking the meat out of the little legs, taking a big bite of tail meat while butter drips down your chin.
I guess not everyone agrees with me. Many folks just want to eat the lobster meat without the killing and cracking. That's where John Hathaway comes in.
He found out about an accidental discovery in Louisiana by an oyster distributor who, while playing around with high pressure water to kill bacteria on oysters and extend their shelf life, discovered that the high pressure spray also shucked the oysters. Hathaway wondered how this technique might work with lobsters. He headed South to find out.
What he found may actually revolutionize how and where lobster can be shipped and how it can be sold and served. What happened is that the live lobsters came out of the high pressure spray with 2 differences: they were dead and the meat was totally separated from the shells, but still on the inside. So once the shells were cracked, the raw lobster meat just slid out.
Needless to say, Hathaway has changed his business plan. He bought a huge machine that puts the lobsters under high pressure, killing them in 6 seconds and separating the meat in 6 minutes. He sells to people who don't want to cook and dismantle live lobsters in their homes and to restaurants that save money (and pass some of the savings on to their customers) because they don't have to have space to store live lobsters. Lobster meat can now be shipped at much less expense (you don't have to keep the critters alive) and can spread the Maine lobster to places that haven't known it before.
For my money, I want the fun of eating a whole lobster. But I can totally understand the appeal of cooking with raw lobster meat without the hassle. Read more about this interesting story in this article from Boston.com.
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ReplyDeleteThe American lobster, Homarus americanus, is found on the east coast of North America, from Newfoundland to North Carolina, with Maine Lobster being the most abundant and delicious. In 2018, Maine Lobster catch was 119 million pounds, over $484 million worth, the world leader. Oh, and its the best tasting lobster too! BUY MAINE LOBSTER ONLINE
Cold clean waters are the key to such tasty crustacean. Besides the normal colored lobsters, Maine lobstermen have also discovered rare blue, yellow, red, and white ones. Aside from the white albino lobsters, all turn red when cooked. Lobsters grow to legal one pound size in about 7 years. By molting – they molt or shed, their shells about 25 times in the first 5 years of life.
No one has yet found a way to determine the exact age of a lobster because it sheds its shell so often, but they can live to 100 years. Lobsters “smell” their food by using four small antennae on the front of their heads and tiny sensing hairs that cover their bodies.
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Lobster blood is usually a gray or slightly blue color, but it can sometimes be orange, green, or light pink.
A lobster egg is the size of the head of a pin. A 1-pound female lobster usually has between 8,000 to 12,000 eggs, which are attached to the underside of her tail. She carries the eggs for about a year until they are released as larvae. Only about 1/10 of one percent of those eggs will live past 6 weeks.
The largest lobster in captivity is at the Maine State Aquarium in Boothbay Harbor. The aquarium is also home to a blue lobster, which are quite rare, approximately 1 in 1 million.
Lobster is a $500 Million per year industry for Maine.