The Summer of Death™ may be over, but there is always a time to kill, particularly when the nuclear winter comes and we are all forced to murder what we eat while walking south to avoid the cannibals. Here, in an Awl exclusive, our own personal (and somewhat frightening) chef shows you how to prepare lobsters for grilling through this coming Autumn of Death™.
Warning: Video has a fairly high gross-out factor and is not suitable for vegetarians, the easily-grossed out and, of course, Mary Tyler Moore. We'd say that no lobsters were harmed in the making of this video but that is a terrible lie.
Aw. This makes me miss DFW
You didn't do the quiet shhushing hypnosis part where you lull them to sleep by stroking their heads, right between the eyes. You can see them relax, claws going limp... You can practically hear the honk shu honk shu right before you stab the knife through their heads and split them in half. I saw this done once, not knowing the final step and I almost threw up. Yum!
I used to use this method when I was a line cook at a seafood oriented restaurant. I usually had to "process" 40-50 of those suckers a day. Kind of put me off seafood for a few years.
Didn't bother me, but I think Mare just turned the world on with her bile.
He should have boiled that guy for two minutes before the cut. Makes for an easier slice and the meat is easier to cook on the grill.
The same deal for puppies.
Ha!
Does your chef know how to properly filet a puppy?
I was fine until they showed his smile.
Nonetheless... delicious!
I thing that is cut in half should not continue to move.
I have a serious complaint to file with God about this.
"A thing" I mean.
I'm sure most people know this, but you can continue to see for 3-4 seconds after being guillotined. Not sure how much sense you can make of what you're seeing, but there it is.
How the fuck do "they" know that?
I saw it on MythBusters
STRONGLY TERRIFIED FOREVER and also still curious about how that's determined.
It was in Harper's too, so it might be true.
Apparently some eager young doctor during the French revolution axed (ha) some noble people who were condemned to be beheaded anyway if, you know, they wouldn't mind, for the sake of science, blinking their eyes for as long as they could after the guillotine blade had dropped. Apparently a few said, what the fuck, why not, and complied, and hence we have this doctor's account of blinking going on like 30 seconds after the head was detached.
You mean to tell me the delicious lobster I had last weekend didn't die quietly in its sleep after living a fun filled life in the ocean?
I love seeing you comment in a vaguely DFW-adjacent post.
(Please do so more frequently. Getit!)
Yes Miss Mantooth, sorry Miss Mantooth.
Did they have to go with the slaughterhouse lighting?! Jeez, Eli Roth movies have more romantic ambience.
the lighting made it for me, actually.
Hypnotic. Why have I watched this 30 times so far?
I liked the original better (hee hee hee, haw haw haw!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuuEDDyvzuE
Zut Alors! Zat is zee original french method!
I just put them in boiling water. Does it make me a meanie that I ignore their screams for mercy?
I'm sorry, but I can only thing of Sponge Bob crying at the funeral. Except, I worked at a Grocery Store during my youth (gawd, like through 2d year law), and those little fuckers were mean! Like jump out of the tank and grab your law school love handle mean! That one got off easy.
What Bohan said. Plus: have you seen how lobster is prepped for Cantonese dishes? The above is like 'first day of primary school' compared to that!
For anyone who is tempted to be all bleeding-heart anout animal rights, etc., as someone who has spent more time than I'd like to have in Nova Scotia, let me assure you that if the situation were reversed, those spiny motherfuckers would have you jointed, quartered and in boiling water before you could say PETA.
LOL- trademark on "The Summer of Death".
It's ours, dammit!
http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/my-summer-of-death
Good use of the "TM" rather than the "®," too.