Dead lobster?

[B Edulis]

So I got a lobster at the greenmarket on Saturday and tossed it on the bottom shelf of my fridge and checked it out this morning and it was dead. I just steamed it and chilled it. Can I eat it?

[Jinmyo]

You don't know how many hours it was dead.

Thriftiness is not a virtue when it comes to a risk of food poisoning. Turf it, sez I.

Please, Maria.

[B Edulis]

Food poisoning? It's history. And thanks for letting me know.

But do you know why? Same reason as clams and oysters and mussels, maybe. But not shrimp. Inquiring minds want to know.....

[Jon Tseng]

don't think its same reasons as clams oysers, mussles - remember reading about how lobster meat goes wooly and tasteless quickly after the beastie is slain.  This would imply the reason people don't eat it is "doesn't taste as good" rather than "its likely to give me the shits"...

dunno why this doesn't apply to prawns, scallops (or langoustine come to think of it) (but then again some of the fresh, dead langoustine have cooked ended up quite woolly too. but that could just be my cooking...)

cheerio

j

[Matthew Grant]

It would also suggest the lobster was pretty old when you bought it, they will survive for quite a while in the fridge or on ice.

[stefanyb]

Here's a story:

Went to the Palm Too for hubbie's birthday celebration.  We ordered a five pound lobster and a filet mignon to share.  I am partial to eating the parts of the lobster that other people only play with, namely the body and the legs and since it was his birthday, I gave him both claws and the tail and he was in heaven (figuratively speaking).  Now thats a lot of lobster.

Anyway, that night, lo and behold, hubbie comes down with the loveliest hives you have ever seen.  Yadda, yadda, yadda, allergist says he's now allergic to lobster.  I, however, was not satisfied with this diagnosis and made some inquiries.  It seems that once a lobster dies there are toxins that are released into the body of the lobster and therefore the lobster becomes mildly poisonous when eaten.  We surmised that the five pounder had probably been dead before cooking.  As some evidence of this, he has eaten many a lobster since with no reaction whatsoever even though the allergist said it would be worthless even to be retested for at least five years.  

Its a good thing you deep-sixed it.

[Liza]

Shocked. Shocked and stunned! Your refrigerator is an evil dispenser of death, Maria, and should be sternly cautioned. "I will not tolerate such incivility," would say I.

[B Edulis]

Well, I had checked the lobster section in Bittman's Fish book and it didn't say anything about the live/dead issue. Last night, I remembered to look at introductory chapter under the general shellfish section. There, he sez that shellfish viscera has a tendency to contaminate the meat shortly after death. This is why dead scallops are okay -- the meat is cut away from the viscera, and why dead clams (in the shell) are not.

Here's another twist. I had left the steaming liquid in the stainless steel pan until I found out whether the lobster was edible (it smelled good, didn't want to waste it). When I got back to it several hours later, it had turned green! I thought stainless steel was non-reactive. Am I wrong?

[Liza]

OHMYGOODNESS! The refrigerator is enlisting help from the stainless! Run, Maria, Run!  :wow:

[Wilfrid]

But what about razor clams?  If I chucked away every razor clam with a partially open shell before cooking, I wouldn't have any left.  They seem very lazy about keeping their shells closed.  Am I dicing with death?

[B Edulis]

The razor clams I've eaten have mostly been lolling pornographically out of their shells, and it's easy to see that they're alive. I think this is why they aren't more popular, 'cause they sure are delicious......

But what's with the green stock?

[Jinmyo]

Gah.

[Wilfrid]

lolling pornographically out of their shells

Yep, that's them.  Quite disgusting.  I shall carry on as usual then.

[Adam_Balic]

Have you ever tried to catch the damn things? Attempted it on the west coast of Scotland, ended up looking very silly and no clams.

[B Edulis]

Gee, I think razor clams are kinda cute (it's that lolling business, I guess)....

BTW, the stove with the pot of color-changing green stock is not the same stove my ex-roommate urinated into (see Striving for Imperfection thread, if you must).

And I'm still wondering. I know that horseshoe crabs have green blood because it's copper-based. But I thought everything else had iron-based blood. Whether this has anything to do with the stock changing to green is an open question.

[PaulaJ]

Sometimes the lobsters get stunned in the cold.

Did you try naturally warming it, out of the Fridge?

No tail flap, no eat.