Today was sauce day! We made all kinds of yummy toppings for meats and veggies. I was in charge of mushroom sauce. It wasn't particularly glamorous, but dalliscious! My partner made Newburg sauce with bits of shrimp and roasted shells. That was quite tasty also. It looked much like shrimp bisque and could have easily been increased into a lovely soup.
One of the sauces was Americaine, which includes lobster. Thus part of the day was a demonstration on how to break down a live lobster. I've eaten many a lobster in my life, at least once or twice a year and sometimes multiple creatures in one meal. Freshly steamed lobster meat, warm fresh out of the shell and dipped in butter is DALLISCIOUS! Also, chilled lobster salad with a little mayo and dill is also DALLISCIOUS! It's definitively on my favorite foods list. When our family makes lobster at home, generally the only way we eat it, we usually have lobster races. All soon-to-be-devoured critters are lined up on the starting line, sometimes even with numbers and colored jerseys with diamonds and stripes like at the horse races. Some are super speedy and bolt to the end, but most just either lie there and go nowhere or they go the wrong direction.
With these experiences in my past, I feel I seen a few lively lobsters in my time. However, the lobster for our kitchen demonstration would have kicked any of those lobsters tails right out of their shells! He lied on the table with his claws straight up in the air. If the instructor picked him up he thrashed his tail wildly nonstop. I'm not sure where he got all that energy. You'd think the roadtrip to Atlanta would have worn him out. Maybe the Publix is injecting their lobsters with speed! Doubt it!
The instructor then showed us how to humanely kill the lobster, but stabbing the point of his chef's knife right between the eyes quickly and proceeding to chop down the middle of the lobster so that two halves laid on the table, each with one antenae, one claw, half a body and a few little legs and half a tail. Incredibly, the lobster was still twitching. Was he really dead at that point? The instructor then cut each of the primals apart, (I don't think they are really referenced as primals.) the claws, and the tail halves.
The lobster parts were still twitching! The class couldn't believe it, myself included! The instructor went on to lecture on this and that related to cooking the lobster, but I couldn't tell you one word of it. If I touched one of his legs, (confirmed, it was a male) the tiny claw at the end would react. It was somewhat spooky. How could a completely dismembered animal, in 6+ pieces still have movement?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment