Lobster Recipes & Trivia For National Lobster Day

June 15, 2021 at 7:54 am · Filed under Fish-Seafood-Caviar, Food Facts - Food History, Food Holidays, Recipes, The Nibble

[1] A rare two-color lobster (photos #1, #2 and #3 © Lobster Anywhere | Facebook).

[2] An even more rare blue lobster.

[3] The most rare are albino a.k.a. crystal lobsters: 1 in a million.

[4] Lobster Mac & Cheese (photo © Blake’s All Natural).

[5] Lobster Cobb Salad (photo © Skinny Taste).

Lobster BLT. Add some avocado for a BLLAAT (photo © How Sweet Eats.)

June 15th is National Lobster Day. We’re sharing some of our favorite lobster recipes; but we’re starting off with some “shell shockers”: lobster trivia from Woodman’s Restaurant in Essex, Maine. For 100+ years, they’ve been serving lobster, clam chowder, and other Maine specialties. They’re not far from Boston, and open year-round.

Or, you can skip to the lobster recipes below.

LOBSTERS: WHO KNEW?

Body

Color: Although most lobsters are either blue-black or greenish-brown, genetic and environmental factors have created: bright blue (1 in 2 million lobsters); bright red (1 in 10 million); yellow (1 in 30 million); two-colored (1 in 50 million); and albino, a.k.a. crystal lobsters (1 in 100 million).

Anatomy: A lobster’s brain is located in its throat, its nervous system in its abdomen, its heart on its back, its teeth in its stomach, and its kidneys in its head.

Blood: Lobster blood is rich in copper, but it’s colorless until it is exposed to oxygen—at which point it turns blue. When cooked, it turns into a whitish gel.

Senses: Covered from head to tail with chemical receptors, lobsters can smell and/or taste across virtually every portion of their bodies.

Elimination: Lobsters pee out of their faces, from glands located right under their eyes. Squirting urine at each other is part of both lobster combat and courtship.

Regeneration: Lobsters are capable of reflex amputation. They can discard a limb to escape. They also can grow back their legs, claws, and antennae.

Molting: A lobster typically molts, or sheds its shell, about 25 times in the first five years. After that, molting occurs annually, then once every few years, then gradually less frequently. Each time a lobster molts, it increases its size by 15% to 20%. Lobsters often devour their own shells after they molt, which replenishes calcium and speeds the hardening of the new shell. A just-molted lobster is so delicate that if you lifted it from the water, its claws would likely fall off.

Size: Lobsters can grow up to four feet long and weigh as much as 40 pounds.

Life

Age: It is believed that lobsters can live as long as 100 years.

Birth: Of the 10,000 or so fertilized eggs a female may release at a time, only .1% will survive past four to six weeks of life. The rest are eaten by predators.

Longevity: The best way to tell the age of a lobster is to dissect it and count the rings in the eyestalk or the gastric mill (part of the stomach), similar to counting rings on a tree stump.

Eating

Black Line: If you see a black line on the lobster’s tail, it’s unfertilized eggs. You can eat them.

Tomalley: The coral-colored tomalley is not the lobster’s liver; it’s part of the digestive tract.

Reputation: While Native Americans ate lobster, Colonials considered them to be “poor man’s chicken.” The crustaceans were fed to pigs and goats, to prisoners, and were only eaten by paupers.

Here’s more lobster trivia.

30+ LOBSTER RECIPES

Breakfast

Avocado Toast With Lobster

Lobster Poached Eggs

Surf & Turf Eggs Benedict

Starters & Sides

Gruyère & Lobster Cheesecake Appetizer

Lobster Bisque

Lobster Guacamole

Guacamole & Lobster Lettuce Cups

Lobster Hash

Lobster Mashed Potatoes