Lobsters are disgusting and pitiful
Apr. 19th, 2004 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yinshubackup...and I refuse to use my atheme to kill one by stabbing it in the head, even if it is more humane to kill it before you steam it.
Besides, who wants to eat something that looks like an armored tarantula/scorpion of the sea/alien offspring?
eeuhuugh.
I told my group I am not doing the lobsters tomorrow.
Chef John showed me and Jo how to deal with lobsters at Knickerbocker last summer as they steamed hundreds of lobsters on top of each other in large perforated hotel pans in the convection steamer so we could serve the hoardes of rich members descending upon us for yet another clambake.
Even though we were mere waitresses, and therefore not ordinarily worthy of the kitchen's culinary secrets, there were times when the afternoons were slow on the floor and we had nothing to do but hang around the kitchen and learn stuff. If Chef John was feeling particularly generous, he'd teach us things like how to tell the different grades of meat, and how to cut pineapples correctly to get all the little eyes out. One day they were prepping for one of the dreaded clambakes, so the club had received around 300 lobsters that morning.
John dug through the slowly writhing piles of black and green legs and claws till he had one in each hand, a male and a female. He turned them over and showed us the difference, how the males have hard spiny things under their tails, while the females have softer, feathery things.
I guess Nature must have a sense of humor, giving something as unsexy as a lobster totally cliche nether-bits.
Later, he showed us how to crack the claws off the bright red cooked ones, and tear the heads off, and split the tails down the middle with a large knife, plating them up just so, the heads balanced on end, sticking straight up, looking at you, the other peices arranged out like weird red and white petals. He garnished the plates with a lemon wedge, pat of butter, and a little napkin roll containing a plastic bib and tiny metal pickers that looked like surgical tools from a bad alien abduction movie.
He also showed us how the head was full of this green smelly goo called tamale, and females sometimes had eggs in their tails, and somehow this made them more desirable. I thought it looked like my 6-year-old self's perfect mental image of Gross Things To Never, Ever Eat, Even For A Dare.
I did try it once.
Since I grew up in a land-lubber family, with a father who was allergic to shellfish, I was always very curious about this ugly, powerful thing which looked like a miniature demon, was messy and difficult to eat politely, yet was apparently so succulent and decadent that it is a status-symbol food of the rich, and can command such high prices for such a very little bit of meat.
One night, some club members had apparently brought a poor, uneducated savage to dinner with them, and she did not know how to eat her lobster properly. So there was a lot of half-picked out meat still on her plate with I cleared it- almost a whole claw worth. I knew it had been steamed fresh less than half an hour before, and, partly because I knew the kitchen would never waste good lobster on the education of an ignorant waitress (oh, John would show us how he sliced and diced 'em, but he'd never let us eat it), and partly because I knew I could be a better server if I could upsell food I had actually tasted, I decided I would try that claw meat before sending the plate up to the dishwasher.
I took it back to the service station with me, where we always came when we were tired of being on the floor and just wanted to hide from the customers' demanding eyes for a little while, and set it on the counter, staring at the ugly carcass of massacred red shells and legs, feathery white gills, and goopy, stinky green goo.
At least the goo hadn't touched the claw meat. yet.
I looked around; I was alone for the moment. I picked up the speckly, shiny pink meat with my bare fingers. It wiggled and glistened wierdly, but I remember thinking, oh, what the hell, it can't be THAT bad if every one here orders a hundred of these things a day.
I popped it in my mouth.
It was bland, and had a very soft, subtle melting texture. Almost slimy. For an instant, I could see why this weird stuff had the qualities that are often intellectually associated with "gourmet" food. And then it started to-- remind me of things. Like the slipperyness of runny eggs, and foie gras, and raw oysters. All of which I hate.
Heaven help me, crude and unappreciative savage that I am, I spit it out.
Looking back on it, I think to myself, awh, it wasn't that bad. I'm sure if it was mixed in with other stuff, like soup or tacos, I would eat it just fine.
It's just that...it wasn't that good, either. I was underwhelmed. Definitely not good enough to suffer through the awful cracking sound of the shells, that icky green tamale goo, and the pitiful screaming-hissy sound that they make as they die, all for just a few peices of bland, slimy white meat. Hmph. Maybe I am an old softie. I will admit, when I'm not being disgusted by the little leggy brutes, I am being distracted by a rather annoying urge to name them.
Maybe the reason I hate lobster so much is because it is a symbol of my wasted summer, that awful job and the snobby people I worked for.
Or maybe it's the smell, or the gross looking carcasses, or the bland taste and gross texture. Or maybe I just feel weird being cruel to Tom and Edna: do I stab them in the head with a knife or steam them alive?
I like most food, even most weird food, and I'm not a generally squeamish person by nature. There aren't many things I won't try. I may even turn out to be a pretty decent cook, with all the experience I'm getting lately, and if you ever come to my house for dinner, I might try to serve you roast goat and yogurt, or some illegal French cheese and fine wine, or banana lumpia with macadamia nut-sapote ice cream, but if you get served lobster, you can be sure I hired a caterer.
Besides, who wants to eat something that looks like an armored tarantula/scorpion of the sea/alien offspring?
eeuhuugh.
I told my group I am not doing the lobsters tomorrow.
Chef John showed me and Jo how to deal with lobsters at Knickerbocker last summer as they steamed hundreds of lobsters on top of each other in large perforated hotel pans in the convection steamer so we could serve the hoardes of rich members descending upon us for yet another clambake.
Even though we were mere waitresses, and therefore not ordinarily worthy of the kitchen's culinary secrets, there were times when the afternoons were slow on the floor and we had nothing to do but hang around the kitchen and learn stuff. If Chef John was feeling particularly generous, he'd teach us things like how to tell the different grades of meat, and how to cut pineapples correctly to get all the little eyes out. One day they were prepping for one of the dreaded clambakes, so the club had received around 300 lobsters that morning.
John dug through the slowly writhing piles of black and green legs and claws till he had one in each hand, a male and a female. He turned them over and showed us the difference, how the males have hard spiny things under their tails, while the females have softer, feathery things.
I guess Nature must have a sense of humor, giving something as unsexy as a lobster totally cliche nether-bits.
Later, he showed us how to crack the claws off the bright red cooked ones, and tear the heads off, and split the tails down the middle with a large knife, plating them up just so, the heads balanced on end, sticking straight up, looking at you, the other peices arranged out like weird red and white petals. He garnished the plates with a lemon wedge, pat of butter, and a little napkin roll containing a plastic bib and tiny metal pickers that looked like surgical tools from a bad alien abduction movie.
He also showed us how the head was full of this green smelly goo called tamale, and females sometimes had eggs in their tails, and somehow this made them more desirable. I thought it looked like my 6-year-old self's perfect mental image of Gross Things To Never, Ever Eat, Even For A Dare.
I did try it once.
Since I grew up in a land-lubber family, with a father who was allergic to shellfish, I was always very curious about this ugly, powerful thing which looked like a miniature demon, was messy and difficult to eat politely, yet was apparently so succulent and decadent that it is a status-symbol food of the rich, and can command such high prices for such a very little bit of meat.
One night, some club members had apparently brought a poor, uneducated savage to dinner with them, and she did not know how to eat her lobster properly. So there was a lot of half-picked out meat still on her plate with I cleared it- almost a whole claw worth. I knew it had been steamed fresh less than half an hour before, and, partly because I knew the kitchen would never waste good lobster on the education of an ignorant waitress (oh, John would show us how he sliced and diced 'em, but he'd never let us eat it), and partly because I knew I could be a better server if I could upsell food I had actually tasted, I decided I would try that claw meat before sending the plate up to the dishwasher.
I took it back to the service station with me, where we always came when we were tired of being on the floor and just wanted to hide from the customers' demanding eyes for a little while, and set it on the counter, staring at the ugly carcass of massacred red shells and legs, feathery white gills, and goopy, stinky green goo.
At least the goo hadn't touched the claw meat. yet.
I looked around; I was alone for the moment. I picked up the speckly, shiny pink meat with my bare fingers. It wiggled and glistened wierdly, but I remember thinking, oh, what the hell, it can't be THAT bad if every one here orders a hundred of these things a day.
I popped it in my mouth.
It was bland, and had a very soft, subtle melting texture. Almost slimy. For an instant, I could see why this weird stuff had the qualities that are often intellectually associated with "gourmet" food. And then it started to-- remind me of things. Like the slipperyness of runny eggs, and foie gras, and raw oysters. All of which I hate.
Heaven help me, crude and unappreciative savage that I am, I spit it out.
Looking back on it, I think to myself, awh, it wasn't that bad. I'm sure if it was mixed in with other stuff, like soup or tacos, I would eat it just fine.
It's just that...it wasn't that good, either. I was underwhelmed. Definitely not good enough to suffer through the awful cracking sound of the shells, that icky green tamale goo, and the pitiful screaming-hissy sound that they make as they die, all for just a few peices of bland, slimy white meat. Hmph. Maybe I am an old softie. I will admit, when I'm not being disgusted by the little leggy brutes, I am being distracted by a rather annoying urge to name them.
Maybe the reason I hate lobster so much is because it is a symbol of my wasted summer, that awful job and the snobby people I worked for.
Or maybe it's the smell, or the gross looking carcasses, or the bland taste and gross texture. Or maybe I just feel weird being cruel to Tom and Edna: do I stab them in the head with a knife or steam them alive?
I like most food, even most weird food, and I'm not a generally squeamish person by nature. There aren't many things I won't try. I may even turn out to be a pretty decent cook, with all the experience I'm getting lately, and if you ever come to my house for dinner, I might try to serve you roast goat and yogurt, or some illegal French cheese and fine wine, or banana lumpia with macadamia nut-sapote ice cream, but if you get served lobster, you can be sure I hired a caterer.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Lobster, uhg....
Date: 2004-04-19 09:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 06:54 am (UTC)Crab, however... (snow, not king) Mmmmmmmm....
just send them my way......
Date: 2004-04-20 07:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-20 11:12 am (UTC)