Mmmmmm....Lobster?

I love lobster, I love crab, I love shrimp. God help me, I could eat crustacean until I'm sick (and I've come close to doing it, believe you me). However, eating and cooking these kinds of shellfish usually takes a little work, mainly the separation of the meat from the shell. We've spent many an evening in the kitchen removing the shells off of shrimp tails (and sometimes the little vein of poo in the tail).

When it comes to lobster, my parents usually take a live ones and drop it into a pot of boiling water, where it makes an "eeeeeeee!" noise as it hits the water. I remember being told that it's not the sound of the lobster screaming in agony, but something to do with the air being forced out of the lobster's body. Right.

Well, according to The Lobster Blog, there's a new method of getting lobster meat: the Avure Technologies Hydrostatic Pressure Processing System!


All you do is drop your live lobsters into the machine's large metal tube, flip the switch, and a huge amount of compressed water pressure is shot at the the lobsters, blowing off their shells and leaving the meat behind. What you get is this:


Disturbingly efficient? Yes! Creepy & nauseating? To be honest, a little. I'm sure the lobster in the picture was arranged like that after it came out of the machine, or then I'd really be freaked out. The whole process is supposed to be a more humane way of killing lobsters - death is supposed to come much more quickly in the machine versus a slower death in boiling water.

What does it all mean? You got me. But I'm sure we'll have a bunch of naked lobsters coming to our supermarket freezer section real soon.

Vengeance will be mine!