Lobster
To open a lobster : wipe lobster, break or sever small and large claws from the body. Separate tail from body portion by twisting and pulling at the same time. Remove meat from body portion carefully, picking edible portion from small bones. Reserve liver and coral if there be any; discard stomach, or "lady." Meat from the body of the lobster is the sweetest and tenderest, but is often thrown away because of the difficulty in removing it. Break the large claws, or if the shell is tender, cut with scissors and remove meat whole.
Crush the tail shell and remove the meat in one piece. Cut entire length of the tail meat and remove the intestinal canal. The small claws are attractive for garnishing, and should be reserved. 1 pint lobster meat
This is a butchering procedure rather than a dish, and it assumes a lobster already boiled or steamed and cooled enough to handle. A few of its terms have dropped out of use.
- Start with a cooked lobsterThe procedure assumes the lobster has been boiled or steamed first. Let it cool until the shell is warm rather than hot; the meat pulls away from the shell more cleanly than when piping hot.
- The "lady"An old name for the stomach sac, which sits in the head behind the eyes. It is gritty and should be discarded, along with the feathery gills.
- Liver and coralThe liver is the soft green tomalley; the coral is the dark roe of a hen lobster, which turns bright red when cooked. Both were prized as thickeners and colouring for sauces and butters. Current advice from several coastal health agencies is to eat tomalley sparingly, since it concentrates contaminants and algal toxins the tail meat does not.
- The intestinal canalThe dark vein running the length of the tail. Split the tail meat down its back and lift the vein out in one piece; it is harmless but bitter and gritty.
- ToolsKitchen shears do most of this work better than a nutcracker. Cut along the soft underside of the tail and the flat side of the claws, and the meat comes out whole rather than in shards mixed with shell.
- Body meatThe point about the body being sweetest is sound and still ignored. Split the carapace lengthwise and work the meat out of the leg sockets and the cartilage-walled pockets with the handle of a small spoon or a lobster pick.
- YieldA pint of picked meat is 2 cups. Expect roughly that from two 1 1/2 to 2 lb lobsters, though yields vary.
- Keep the shellsThe crushed body and small claws make a good stock or lobster butter. Simmer them in water or dry them and pound with butter, then strain.
Lowney's Cook Book (1907) was published by the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston, a chocolate manufacturer, and Boston is the context for a page like this: New England lobster was often eaten chopped into croquettes, newburgs, salads and cream sauces rather than served whole in the shell. That is why the book teaches picking as a basic skill and measures the result by volume, the way it would measure cooked chicken or crab. The instruction to reserve the small claws for garnish belongs to the same era's plating conventions, and the note that the body meat is usually thrown away is a small piece of household economy. Lobster's earlier reputation as a poor man's food had largely faded by 1907, but the habit of using every scrap of it had not.