Lobsters: Cook ‘em or Free ‘em (just don’t Band-Aid ‘em)

Note: After reading a Wall Street Journal piece about East Hampton “back in thuh day-ee,” I was reminded of this little cooking event from my distant past. While the story appeared in New Times six months ago, I’m posting it today in a very different form because it’s amusing enough for a retelling, especially if you didn’t catch it in print this past January. Plus, it’s got lobster cooking tips. Enjoy.

Here’s what I knew about surgical gloves in the early 80s: Howie Mandel did a stupid bit with them, they were good for making proctologist jokes, and you generally didn’t want to wear them on a date. I certainly didn’t know they had any business in a kitchen (unless that kitchen was in, say, Andy Dick’s house). But watch almost anything on the Food Channel these days and you’ll eventually see someone pulling one on to keep a cut finger and raw food separated by a thin rubber membrane.

Sadly, the Food Channel didn’t exist back when I was a prep cook at The Lobster Roll, a well known roadside restaurant, identified simply by a sign that said “Lunch,” in the middle of the “Napeague Stretch” between Amagansett and Montauk.  So I’d never picked up that particular tidbit of kitchen knowledge before being assigned to mix a large vat of the lobster salad that, when piled on a lightly toasted hot dog bun, comprised the restaurant’s signature dish.

The salad, made from chunks of fresh lobster and other goodies, was in a mayo-based sauce with a bit of red food coloring to tint it pink (I think that may have been a secret). I, being a young and inexperienced prep cook, tended to cut my fingers a lot due to the copious amounts of onions that needed peeling and vegetables that needed chopping. Band-Aids, being things that logic dictated were necessary to prevent my cuts from bleeding, were on 60% of the fingers I needed for mixing the salad.

Anyone reading this that has fully formed cognitive skills can probably guess at the odds of retaining all of my Band-Aids throughout a particularly vigorous mixing session, but somehow I was surprised one afternoon when I looked down at my hands and saw a field of white skin marked dead-center with a red cut. The sight prompted an involuntary “oh fuck,” followed by me actually slapping my hand over my own mouth, like an idiot, followed by a wave of nausea at the thought of being discovered.

I returned my hand to my side and I looked over both shoulders to see if anyone had noticed what just happened; I was safe so far. So I grabbed whatever oversized digging or spearing or serving implement I could lay my hands on and started searching through the vat; it was hopeless. That damned pink-tinged mayo camouflaged my Band-Aid perfectly.  With only one option remaining, I did what anyone else that had just dropped medical waste into hundreds of dollars worth of lobster salad would do: put the salad in the walk-in, got a fresh Band-Aid, smoked a joint, and returned to work.

I had forgotten the entire incident an hour later (wonder why…), so it took a moment or two to process just why someone would be screaming that loud out in the dining room. I had maneuvered to the back of the kitchen by the time the day manager arrived in the kitchen demanding to know who the fuck had made the fucking lobster salad that day, and informing us that a fucking customer had just fucking spat out a fucking bloody Band-Aid. So it was worse than I assumed. Or funnier, depending on your perspective.

Whether they knew who the idiot was or not (and a look at everyone’s hands probably would have at least pointed them in the right direction), no one in the kitchen gave me up, instead acting suitably disgusted in order to get the manager the hell out of our territory as fast as possible. A good 30 minutes of jokes about lobster’s texture relative to Band-Aids’ followed his departure. Newsflash: the kitchen staffs in restaurants in most resort towns hate you.

Since then I’ve avoided serving garbage with lobsters, but I’ve cooked more than my share. I even set one free once from Sea Wolf, a restaurant I worked at that happened to be on the water. Why set it free? To make someone laugh or impress a waitress, I’d assume, since the animal loving chicks at most restaurants always made sad pouty faces whenever I killed one to boil or broil (though laying a fresh tail and clarified butter on them was sure to turn that frown upside down).

Still though, it’s important to honor the animal you’re about to serve. So while I think making boiling lobsters illegal, like the town of Reggio Emilia did, is hilarious, and while I wouldn’t waste 50 cents on a Crustatun (a shellfish electric chair), I do think it’s important that you don’t let pinchy in vain by overcooking him. Particularly when he’s volunteered to give his life for your dining pleasure (hey: no one forced him to walk into that lobster pot).

So pick lively fellas (they’re typically the freshest, and also do well in kitchen lobster races) and then read the piece in School of Meat on how to cook lobsters. Serve them in the shell with a huge bowl of clarified butter. Wear a raincoat. Use tools. Get primal. If there’s any left go ahead and try out this lobster roll recipe, but watch your Band-Aids unless you want to traumatize your kids.

Photo from Flickr user amg2000.