Baby Fish Mouth & Deconstructing Lobster
Yesterday, I saw a TV show called "America's Test Kitchen" where the guest chef was making a fancy lobster dish. Except, she didn't boil the lobster to kill it-- she just killed it (I think you can do this by inserting the knife behind the lobster's head, which severs its spinal cord or goes through its brain or something) and then she butchered it.
The most horrifying part was this: THE LOBSTER KEPT MOVING. Yep, while it's being butchered, the lobster keeps twitching, because it is a stupid, stupid creature and its limbs don't quite know that they're supposed to stop moving when the messages from the brain cease.
Gross.
Also, when you butcher a live lobster, you have to keep the rubber bands on the claws until after the claws are detached and until just before they go in the pan, because if you don't, the claws will pinch you. See that? Even after it's dead, the lobster still has good instincts.
After she cut the lobster up into pieces and scooped out the roe and the tamale, the chef put the lobster's claws and tail and legs into a deep saucepan to saute for a while. The legs kept moving for a little bit in the pan. I couldn't stop watching. It was revolting, but fascinating. I once read that lobsters can feel pain, that they have very sensitive nervous systems. I don't think I believe this. I also read that they communicate by whooshing water through their gills or whatever they have. This, I sort of believe.
Lobster translation guide:
Whoosh whoosh = "Wassup?"
Whooshie whooshie = "Not much. You?"
Today, we went to the Fairmount Waterworks Interpretive Center, and I learned all about fish ladders. There is a camera inside a pool of the fish ladder that takes digital photos every five seconds, and you get to it by selecting a button on a computer screen labeled "Live From the Fish Ladder." That's hot. There are video clips too, and the best one is of a river otter trucking through the fish ladder.
Fish you can catch in the Schuykill include catfish, perch, shad, and striped bass.
My band, Walter J. Smitty, is always coming up with names for our hypothetical first album. Today's suggestion: American Shad.
The most horrifying part was this: THE LOBSTER KEPT MOVING. Yep, while it's being butchered, the lobster keeps twitching, because it is a stupid, stupid creature and its limbs don't quite know that they're supposed to stop moving when the messages from the brain cease.
Gross.
Also, when you butcher a live lobster, you have to keep the rubber bands on the claws until after the claws are detached and until just before they go in the pan, because if you don't, the claws will pinch you. See that? Even after it's dead, the lobster still has good instincts.
After she cut the lobster up into pieces and scooped out the roe and the tamale, the chef put the lobster's claws and tail and legs into a deep saucepan to saute for a while. The legs kept moving for a little bit in the pan. I couldn't stop watching. It was revolting, but fascinating. I once read that lobsters can feel pain, that they have very sensitive nervous systems. I don't think I believe this. I also read that they communicate by whooshing water through their gills or whatever they have. This, I sort of believe.
Lobster translation guide:
Whoosh whoosh = "Wassup?"
Whooshie whooshie = "Not much. You?"
Today, we went to the Fairmount Waterworks Interpretive Center, and I learned all about fish ladders. There is a camera inside a pool of the fish ladder that takes digital photos every five seconds, and you get to it by selecting a button on a computer screen labeled "Live From the Fish Ladder." That's hot. There are video clips too, and the best one is of a river otter trucking through the fish ladder.
Fish you can catch in the Schuykill include catfish, perch, shad, and striped bass.
My band, Walter J. Smitty, is always coming up with names for our hypothetical first album. Today's suggestion: American Shad.
posted by meredith at 7:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home