A long time ago a diving expert told me that freshly caught Pacific lobsters, if not immediately flash frozen or cooked, developed a nasty neurotoxin shortly after they died. Recently, an equally proficient diver said that was not true, they just went bad like any other dead flesh. Anybody know the truth?
Afte repeated searches on Sherlock™, I found no mention of that which you describe. Presumably, that does not occur. Then again, there is not much on lobsters on the web that doesn’t have to do with shipping them to one’s doorstep. The best site I could find was California Spiny Lobster, Panulirus interruptus.
I do find it hard to beleive an animal would develop a neurotoxin only after it died, though. How would that help it?
Yes and no. If you don’t gut a fish or a deer pretty soon after killing it the meat will start to go bad real fast. Same with lobster. Removing the tail from the rest of the lobster will slow the putrification process, but you don’t want to leave it out in the sun all day before eating it.
However, this same advice applies to any meat, fish, fowl crustacean, or flower that you harvest.
This is strictly a guess, but it’s commonly advised not to eat bivalves (clams, oysters, et al) if they were already dead when you cook them, presumably because they’ve started to go bad. Maybe it’s the same logic applied to crustaceans?
I’ve always wondered why it’s quite common to find already-cooked crab in the grocery store, but not already-cooked lobster. I guess it has something to do with crab being more commonly eaten cold. I dunno.
Pacific lobsters do not go bad any faster than the Atlantic version. But they do lose flavor if kept for a few days.
The only evidence I have to support this claim is that I lived next door to a spear fisherman.
One day I saw him tossing several lobsters into the dumpster. “Aaack” I said, “Those lobsters are good!”. “Naw, Braddah” he relplied, “The come stink aftah one week.” “NO WAYS!” I told him, “Geeve um”.
So after that my neighbor gave me all the lobster from his freezer he planned to toss out. He looked upon me as an unwashed cretin, I on him as a wastrel. But I had lobster weekly.
So to a spear fisherman, lobster is indeed “stink” after a week in the freezer. But to the average joe they are still “ono”, not poisonous.
Lobsters you buy here are cooked.
I don’t think its the lobster so much as all the sea organisms & stuff in & around it that stink.