I really love lobster bisque but only have it rarely because heavy cream is a no-no for me and the bisque is nothing without it. Now I think I may not have it at all ever again, because I just found out how they make it.
First you cook your lobster (which is to say, you boil it alive). If that hasn’t already managed to spoil your appetite, you then pick out all the lobster meat and set it aside, then you crack up the shells and boil them some more to get the extra flavor for your stock.
What’s left on the table is a mass of what look like lobster intestines still filled with what intestines are usually filled with. Don’t make the mistake of throwing any of that away, the recipe says. Just add it to the stock. It contains a very intense flavor.
Oh, I bet it does, but, you know, I’m not as hungry as I thought I was. I’ll just have the small green salad.
skip says:
Don’t sweat it – basically any lobster you eat will have been purged first, so the intestines will be empty, not, as you say ” still filled with what intestines are usually filled with”.
Incidentally, if you cook your own crawfish, they frequently will not have been purged, so you’ll need to do it yourself. Soak them in water you keep changing until it stops muddying – to do it faster, you can add salt (I usually do).
April 29, 2010, 12:42 amSubrata Sircar says:
Laws and sausages … and lobster bisque. I imagine slaughterhouses are not a fine appetizer either.
April 29, 2010, 1:05 amMarc says:
Sounds offal to me! *I’ll get my coat!*
April 29, 2010, 2:29 amGustaf Erikson says:
Heh, crayfish is a traditional delicacy here in Sweden and you learn to drink your aquavit and avert your eyes from the innards if you know what’s good for you!
Reminds me of the old line from a Swedish humorist, “crayfish, they’re the only creatures that are killed alive!”
April 29, 2010, 2:58 amRalan says:
Now we know what ‘bisque’ really means.
Is it also a way to use imperfect crustaceans that can’t otherwise be sold? Does a bear bisque in the forest?
April 29, 2010, 3:12 amACW says:
ew ew EW!
April 29, 2010, 6:04 amYou’re right: that’s one dish I won’t be having!
Jeff says:
I actually make a good version without using the innards. Actually, I rarely use lobster at all, because it’s so expensive. I have a gallon bag of leftover crawfish shells in the freezer right now, waiting to go in the pot as soon as I can find time.
April 29, 2010, 7:16 amRobert Nowall says:
Never enter a restaurant through the kitchen—unless you’re trying to lose weight.
April 29, 2010, 8:38 amJohn H says:
The old adage about sausage making comes to mind. But I don’t think knowing how it’s made is going to stop me from eating the bisque (or sausages, for that matter).
April 29, 2010, 8:59 amSara says:
You see, this is why ignorance can be bliss. I had the exact same experience with my mom’s turkey dressing. It was so horrific to discover that she places the chopped up internal organs of the turkey and the neck in the dressing. I had to skip that dressing for a whole year before the images of her chopping innards fuzzed up enough. I wouldn’t go anywhere near those organs intentionally, but I have always placed Mom’s dressing in the top 10 favorite foods.
Life is so weird.
April 29, 2010, 9:17 amTod says:
I’d recomend NOT eating the spam or sausage, either …
April 29, 2010, 11:58 amOscar A. Garcia says:
At the province where I was born in Spain, boiled shrimps are a typical dish. And then I am supposed to be the strange one because I don’t like to eat them peeling them with my hands, usually I use a knife and a fork.
But that same people who consider me weird , many of them like to absorb their brains from their heads, making that horrible noise (shmph shmph)…
(By the way, I just discovered your blog today: I am just another big fan of your Gateway saga
)
April 29, 2010, 1:52 pmRoss Presser says:
“You have baked me too brown; I must sugar my hair.”
April 29, 2010, 4:19 pmgrs1961 says:
What a wooss!
April 30, 2010, 12:08 amBrian says:
Yikes, my favorite soup! Suddenly I’m not so certain… Is it always made that way? (I know the boiling of the lobster is an unavoidable side to preparing the dish, but the part about the innards…?)
April 30, 2010, 9:41 amMark E. Allen says:
Lobster Bisque like sausage is best enjoyed when one doesn’t know the method of preparation. Thanks, Fred!
April 30, 2010, 10:46 amKirk says:
Hilarious!
May 1, 2010, 1:41 pmBill Goodwin says:
People, we’re talking about arthropods. With long antennae. Picture a ten pound cockroach, lying on its back–would you eat it?
May 2, 2010, 10:59 amBruce Arthurs says:
Bill Goodwin, for your attention: \"The Human Side of the Village Monster\" by Ed Bryant (in UNIVERSE 1, ed by Terry Carr, 1971).
March 6, 2011, 12:18 amJJ Brannon says:
Sorry, Fred, but as a pre-schooler I was raised around farm animals, had beheaded chickens draining from clothesline in the basement, milked cows & goats, visited the slaughterhouse with my father after a deer hunt, ate my pet pig [great pork chops!], gutted fish, ate tripe, roasted bees in honey, and — as a Delaware Valley/South Jersey native — have been shelling and devouring steamed crabs as soon as I could wield a butter knife to crack claws.
I never understood this fussiness urbanites have over food.
JJB
March 7, 2011, 1:05 am