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Broiled Live Lobster
Kill the fish by inserting a sharp knife in its back between the body and tail shells, severing the spinal cord. Split the shell the entire length of the back, remove the stomach and intestinal canal, crack the large claws and lay the fish as flat as possible. Brush the meat with melted butter, season with salt and pepper, place in a broiler, with the shell side down, cover and broil slowly until of a delicate brown, twenty minutes usually sufficing. Turn the broiler and broil for ten minutes longer. Serve hot, passing melted butter with the lobster.
A straightforward split-and-broil lobster, though the timings belong to a coal range with a hinged wire broiler rather than a modern oven element.
- The hinge: don't overcook itTwenty minutes plus ten is far too long for a modern 1 to 1½ lb lobster, which will be dry and cottony. Broil shell-side down 8 to 10 minutes under a hot element, until the tail meat is opaque and reads about 135–140F at the thickest point; there is no need to turn it at all.
- What "broiler" means hereA hinged double-sided wire basket set over or before the fire, which is why the recipe says to cover it and then turn it. A modern oven broiler or a grill does the same job from one side only.
- "Broil slowly"On a range this meant setting the broiler further from the coals. Under a gas or electric broiler, keep the rack 5 to 6 inches from the element rather than pressed up close, so the shell does not scorch before the meat sets.
- Killing and splittingThe knife thrust is still a standard method and is quicker than boiling first, though note the recipe puts the cut at the joint between body and tail, whereas modern guidance is to cut behind the head. Lobsters have a ventral nerve cord rather than a true spinal cord, so a single cut may not kill outright. Some cooks plunge the lobster into boiling water briefly first, which makes splitting easier and steadier.
- "Remove the stomach"Discard the sand sac behind the eyes and the dark intestinal line down the tail. Keep the green tomalley and any coral roe if you like them; both are edible, though tomalley is where contaminants concentrate and is best eaten sparingly.
- BastingBrush with melted butter again halfway through. The exposed tail meat dries fast under direct heat.
- YieldOne lobster per person for a main course. Serve with the melted butter the recipe calls for.
Broiling was a common American restaurant treatment for lobster around 1900, alongside plain boiling; a split broiled lobster with drawn butter appeared on hotel and chophouse menus in Boston and New York. The Butterick Publishing Company was better known for dress patterns and The Delineator. Lobster was abundant and inexpensive along the Northeast coast through much of the nineteenth century — it was reportedly fed to servants and prisoners — and became a luxury as rail and canning opened inland markets and stocks near shore thinned.