The squeamish and the vegetarian can look away... But we actually found this video from Fine Cooking really interesting and helpful. Get a link below.
It's funny that we were inclined to click on the link. We never cook lobster, but part of the reason is fear: Fear of handling live things with big claws, fear of them suffering while boiling to death, etc.
And this video isn't promising a painless or hands-off death. As the title suggests, you're killing here. But this method appears more humane. You let the lobster hang out in the freezer for a few minutes (to numb it), and then you kill it as quickly as possible with a swift slice through the brain.
• See the video: How to Kill a Lobster, from Fine Cooking
We'd recommend making sure your chef's knife is newly sharpened.
Related: Sense of Place: The Flavors of New England
(Image: Fine Cooking)
How To Make Cake Pops
How To Cook a Steak: 15 Recipes for a Weeknight Valentine's Meal
Like us on Facebook
Our reading list
RSS Feed (Atom)
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Valentine's Ice Cre...
Before & After: Trashed Hutch Turned Vanity Dresser 
Ashley & Kyle's Personality Packed Home 
Comments (9)
This is how I learned how to kill lobster at chef school. The hard part for me is that they reflexively curl up when you cut into them which is FREAKY!
I recently wrote a post about cooking lobster which might help readers who decide to follow the advice in your post. Even the Minister of Fisheries of New Brunswick offered his tips in the comment section:
http://danamccauley.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/how-to-cook-lobster
This reminds me of an article that David Foster Wallace did for Gourmet mag on the Maine Lobster Festival. It is a great read. This a great introduction to David Foster Wallace if you are not familiar with his writing. Its a long article, but well worth the effort.
http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster
Oh boy.
I actually don't think I could kill one myself---I make my boyfriend do it. Isn't it kinda funny though that we all can't tolerate the sight of learning where our food actually comes from? Those lobster Clubs don't make themselves, y'know.
I still don't think I could do it myself. I can't even eat lobster from the shell - I don't like being reminded that the tasty meat I'm eating is basically a giant sea bug.
I'm an awful person. I usually steam them as is. I console myself by telling myself that they're already half dead by the time i get them home... they're usually pretty lethargic from sitting around in those big tanks. I just couldn't bring myself to stab them with a knife... i tell myself that they're invertebrates anyway and can't feel anything in the steam bath, though who knows for sure. I've certainly never seen any signs of distress (trying to run away, etc).
I see nothing ethically wrong with throwing a lobster in a pot of boiling water. I am wondering though, for those that care about how the lobster feels, how is freezing it for 20 minutes better than boiling it? Extreme heat and cold are both excruciating experiences for humans. And really, at the end of the day, how can any of us know what a lobster is feeling? Just eat your food. It all comes from living things and no lobster, tomato, cow, watermelon, nut, or fish has any more importance over another living thing in the grand scheme of things, except perhaps in our manufactured ethical eyes.
Julia Child shows viewers how to kill a lobster in this manner with her usual wit. It is one of my favorite episodes of Julia. She does it because she thinks this technique also brings out the best flavor. In the same episode she also uses her asbestos hands quote when referring to picking up the red hot lobster.
Luke
The New Urban Sharecropper
http://newurbansharecroppers.blogspot.com
So, my uncle is a lobster fisherman by hobby (rather than trade). He showed me how to stun lobsters before cooking them. As I recall it, their main nerve runs down the 'back' of the lobster. Rubbing your fingers up and down the center of the main body segment numbs them by overstimulating the nerve and they will stop moving and go limp. We made a game of it when I was a kid by seeing how many stunned lobsters we could get in a row perched upside down on their claws and head like a tripod before the first ones woke up.