Just remember: Given the opportunity, the lobster will eat you.
Hijack, but still crustacean-related: I caught some dungeness crabs this summer. Prior to cooking them, I placed them on their backs, put a machete along their undersides, and whacked the machete with a mallet. Killed them instantly, except for one that managed to skew the blade at the last moment. The bigger half tried to get me with its claw, but a jab in the neural blob with a chopstick put an end to that.
Back to lobsters. There was (is?) a Mexican restaurant in Lancaster, CA that had some really excellent Pacific spiny lobster. (Pacific spiny lobster tastes better than Maine lobster, BTW; and you don’t have to crack the claws because they haven’t any.) I wish I knew how it was prepared. Garlic in the butter? Seasoning in the water it was boiled in? There was ‘something’ they did to it that made it very tasty indeed – more tasty than usual. (Incidentally, it was served with slices of avocado, and frijoles refritos and rice.)
Another question: My mom cooked lobster halves on the grille when I was a kid. Anyone do this? Do you bisect the live lobster and then just throw it on the barbie? IIRC, there was some basting involved. Butter?
Back to the original OP: Explaining to a 10-year old that a lobster “doesn’t feel pain the way we understand it” is probably not going to help. Alternately, tossing the lobster in the boililng water headfirst, so the head hits the water first, and the death is instantaneous (or nearly so.) There is still the possibility of post-mortem jerking reactions.
Johnny: when you grill the lobsters, you usually first kill them via a sharp knife inserted behind the shell, into the brain.
This was before box wine, but they did use they screw-top jugs of the cheapest crap they could find. I dunno how much it cost, like I said I don’t remember the proportions. IIRC, I think they were getting the lobster for next-to-nothing, so maybe they were willing to spring for the wine.
A friend of mine in Japan was invited out for a fancy meal. They brought out a huge live lobster, whacked the tail off right there at the table. The tail was scooped out, sliced and diced into lobster sushi, and plunked back into the inverted the tail shell. They put the tail and the head together on the main tray and proudy presented it with the lobster still moving it’s legs and waving it’s antennae. My friend then posed for a picture using the waving lobster antennae to pick his teeth. I do not think anyone at the table was concerned with the lobster’s well being.
