Many excellent cooks, cooks who think nothing of attempting the most difficult dishes, do not want to tackle a lobster. Yet, in the realm of good eating, few foods outrank this shellfish. Indeed, the lobster is almost a symbol of fine cuisine. Consider the elegant functions you have intended, from formal dinners to Champagne suppers, or the spécialitiés of great restaurants. Again and again you see the lobster playing an important role. In other words, if you aim at haute cuisine, you cannot overlook lobsters. Mais oui even a primer series should include a lesson on this subject. However, just reading the lesson is not enough. You must go into the kitchen and work with lobsters repeatedly until you can handle them as easily as bacon and eggs.
My own experiences with lobsters fall into three chapters, the first during my apprenticeship at the Paris Ritz. I knew I had to learn to cook this arranged food, because any chef who wanted to get ahead had to be able to cook everything. I was a mere sous chef working under the potager, but I used every spare moment watching and learning the skills of the other chefs—including the seafood chef. The second chapter began when I became chef da la cuisine of the old New York Ritz. There I taught the young cooks on my staff how to prepare the lobster dishes preferred by our shellfish connoisseurs. Finally, my third and last experience came during the late thirties and early forties, when I spent my vacation in Maine at the home of a friend who supplied a large percentage of the lobsters that went to the New York market.
In Maine, I learned the fascinating details of lobster fishing and all its many problems. Those bronzed Maine lobstermen who go out in their boars in all kinds of weather, foul and fair, to haul in the filled lobster pots and to bait them again, must make the protection of lobsters their first concern. Before a lobster grows to the size required for eating, many years elapse—four or five for the pound to pound-and-a-quarter size, and seven to ten years for the popular pound-and-three-quarters to two-pound size—long enough for them to be outwitted by their enemies of the deep. However, the most vulnerable time for a lobster occurs during its first days. Then it rises to the surface of the ocean, floating there before it drops to the bottom, and provides a rare delicacy for the thousands of sea gulls along the coast. Large fish go after these tidbits. too. eating many of the tiny lobsters.
But enough lobsters survive to grow to maturity, fortunately for gourmets.
Lobsters in the market weigh between one and four pounds. In must states with a lobster industry, those under a pound must be returned to the sea to grow larger and those over four pounds must be-saved for roseeding. They must be alive and green when you buy them, to yield their most succulent flavor. Do not cook any but the freshest lobsters. People living in sections where local markets never carry lobsters can now get them shipped overnight from East Coast suppliers. These arrive in such excellent condition that I have friends who prefer to buy lobsters this way, even though the local markets carry them.
The number of lobsters to buy depends upon their size and the manner of their preparation. Most people will eat a whole boiled or broiled lobster if it weighs one and one-half pounds or less. People who especially relish lobster think that a whole one weighing as much as two pounds is not too much for one person, although most of us find a half lobster of this size sufficient. Of course, if you are using the meat in a salad, combining it with celery and mayonnaise, or in a dish with considered sauce, the two- to three-pound lobsters are more economical. Two of these will make five to six servings. Whatever size you select, you must cook them as soon as possible.
It is customary to discard the intestinal vein and the little stomach sac from which it starts. The grayish, fringy-looking parts in the upper body are not eaten because they arc spongy and tasteless. But the dark greenish-gray liver, or tomalley, which turns a bright green when cooked, is a great delicacy. When making dishes like lobster à l'américaine, a chef removes the tomalley from the raw lobster and uses it to thicken the sauce. The roe, a bright coral color when cooked, also offers a delicate flavor.
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