The body-shell is usually to be broken in two; break the meat
with the fingers' so as to find the bones easily.
After breaking body through the center, separate the body bones,
picking out the meat between because it is the sweetest.
Separate large claws at joints. If the shell is thin, cut it open
with scissors; if hard, break it with a hammer or mallet.
Remove all the lobster meat whole if possible.
Small claws may be used as a garnish, or else cut lengthwise with
scissors or a sharp knife, and meat removed. The feelers in a female
lobster should be softer than in the male.
The shell of the lobster may be washed and dried and used to hold
lobster farcie, or for garnishing lobster salad.
The coral, which lies along the back of the lobster, is pink; it may
be dried in oven or on top of stove and used as a garnish. It is not pois-
onous, for nothing poisonous is ever used as a garnish.
Don't break meat of tail. If tail-shell cannot be broken, pick meat
away from shell with a knife, keeping as whole as possible. If it
does not come out readily, cut right up through the middle lengthwise
of the shell, taking great care not to break intestinal vein. Be sure to
remove intestinal vein. It is almost always darker in the male than
in the female.
LABORATORY COOK BOOK. 65
The strongesl part of the lobster is in the front claws and the
muscles of the back.
Be sure to get all the meat out of the small claws, because it is
sweetest. There are 4 pairs small claws.
Live lobsters are the best and the cheapest to buy. Male lobsters
are the besl to buy in the spring time, because that is spawning time,
and the females are softer.
Never keep lobster-meat more than 24 hours after it has been
cooked. Put in a* covered dish (not tin) in the refrigerator; if it is
not carefully covered, the other food in the ice-chest will taste of fish.
Keep the firmer pieces of lobster for salad, using the more broken
ones for lobster cutlets.
If one understands how beautifully and wonderfully the creature is
made, the opening of a lobster or chicken loses all its repulsiveness.
Lesson on Olive Oil
Olive oil is not like the juice of the grape, which requires a chemi-
cal process to transform the sugar it contains into alcohol, in order
that it may become wine ; the oil is there ready made within the fruit,
and the utmost that can be done is to extract it, just as it is bursting
the cells within which it is enclosed, by crushing the olives and then
pressing them. Olive oil is found, not made.
A mortar and pestle will crush olives, and the oil and water may
be strained out through cloth or crash by hand. The difference is not
of process but of quantity to be dealt with.
The oil of the pulp is rich and of a delicious flavor; that of the
stone is dark and cloudy; that of the seed contains essential oil, while
the little cells of the skin contain oil in small quantities. The pro-
portion of oil to the seed runs from 10 to 20% in weight.
Page 37
Presented as published in 1914. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
The body-shell is usually to be broken in two; break the meat with the fingers' so as to find the bones easily.
After breaking body through the center, separate the body bones, picking out the meat between because it is the sweetest.
Separate large claws at joints. If the shell is thin, cut it open with scissors; if hard, break it with a hammer or mallet.
Remove all the lobster meat whole if possible.
Small claws may be used as a garnish, or else cut lengthwise with scissors or a sharp knife, and meat removed. The feelers in a female lobster should be softer than in the male.
The shell of the lobster may be washed and dried and used to hold lobster farcie, or for garnishing lobster salad.
The coral, which lies along the back of the lobster, is pink; it may be dried in oven or on top of stove and used as a garnish. It is not poisonous, for nothing poisonous is ever used as a garnish.
Don't break meat of tail. If tail-shell cannot be broken, pick meat away from shell with a knife, keeping as whole as possible. If it does not come out readily, cut right up through the middle lengthwise of the shell, taking great care not to break intestinal vein. Be sure to remove intestinal vein. It is almost always darker in the male than in the female.
The strongesl part of the lobster is in the front claws and the muscles of the back.
Be sure to get all the meat out of the small claws, because it is sweetest. There are 4 pairs small claws.
Live lobsters are the best and the cheapest to buy. Male lobsters are the besl to buy in the spring time, because that is spawning time, and the females are softer.
Never keep lobster-meat more than 24 hours after it has been cooked. Put in a covered dish (not tin) in the refrigerator; if it is not carefully covered, the other food in the ice-chest will taste of fish.
Keep the firmer pieces of lobster for salad, using the more broken ones for lobster cutlets.
If one understands how beautifully and wonderfully the creature is made, the opening of a lobster or chicken loses all its repulsiveness.
Lesson on Olive Oil
Olive oil is not like the juice of the grape, which requires a chemical process to transform the sugar it contains into alcohol, in order that it may become wine ; the oil is there ready made within the fruit, and the utmost that can be done is to extract it, just as it is bursting the cells within which it is enclosed, by crushing the olives and then pressing them. Olive oil is found, not made.
A mortar and pestle will crush olives, and the oil and water may be strained out through cloth or crash by hand. The difference is not of process but of quantity to be dealt with.
The oil of the pulp is rich and of a delicious flavor; that of the stone is dark and cloudy; that of the seed contains essential oil, while the little cells of the skin contain oil in small quantities. The proportion of oil to the seed runs from 10 to 20% in weight.