Pretty sure those were the octopuses. But it’s not like I’m a marine biologist or something. Anyway the chefs all claim there’s no more frantic thrashing in the cooking pot after following this procedure. Could be they are only paralised. Btw one can be perfectly ‘not dead’ yet feel no pain. All sorts of ways to achieve that I think. 
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Well, dang it, now I’m worried about what’s going to happen to me when I smoke the recreational marijuana!
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Bleeding the fish is nearly as quick and sometimes quicker, and it’s a lot more common. Especially in recreational fishing. It tends to improve the quality of the meat as well.
It’s worth pointing out that Ikejime, the Japanese practice that seems to have popularized stabbing them brains. Is also more about improving meat quality. And the process works more by paralyzing the fish to prevent stress response while they’re bled out than by quickly dispatching them.
Lobsters aren’t fish though and they don’t really have a brain to destroy.
Lobster wise dropping them into a steam pot (steaming not boiling in water) is paradoxically one of the theoretically most humane methods. Since it can knock out their entire nervous system at once and can (technically) kill the lobster in less than a minute.
In terms of rendering them unconcious parking them in a freezer for 30 minutes or so basically shuts them down.
It’s a lot of things.
Octopuses have an actual brain though. Crustaceans are basically giant bugs though, there isn’t a single structure that can be considered a true brain.
The different parts are pretty compartmentalized, and aren’t even reliant on the ganglia for their area to keep going.
If I’m remembering it right (high school marine bio), there’s two central ganglia in the main body that in part coordinate all the bits. One directly behind the eyes, and one between the legs.
The one behind the eyes is sometimes labelled the brain, because it’s larger. But from what I remember it’s not any more complex than any of the other ones. It’s mostly larger cause it’s responsible for the eyes and antennae. And it’s actually one further back between the legs that does the heavy lifting on tying the whole lobster together. There’s even one at the base of the tail that responsible for the back half of the lobster.
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Much more distributed than our own brains at any rate.
Makes me wonder if boiling alive is more or less humane than the knife-to-the-head technique since it at least takes out the whole nervous system at the same time.
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On my reading of it boiling wouldn’t be the way to go. Cause boiling is slow at transferring heat into things.
Cooking wise it tends to overcook and water log things, washing out a lot of flavor.
Steaming transfers heat faster, and can supposedly destroy all of those ganglia simultaneously pretty fast. Less than a minute if you do it right. And it’s the better way to cook them.
Thing is since the lobster is so decentralized even after it’s technically dead. Nervous system destroyed, heart not beating etc. All the parts of it can keep moving, and will in fairly random ways for many minutes.
I mean that tail can keep flipping for an insanely long time even if you remove it.
See brainspore’s image. There are 3 5 thoracic ganglia, and 12 abdominal ganglia but many of those have become fused together into 6. In the head there are the optic lobes behind the eyes, the brain (not the same as the optic lobes, and smaller than other ganglia) and supraesophageal ganglion.
(fwiw my dissertation research was on neurobiology in crustaceans)
eta: oh shit I’ve been working on insects too long (which have 3 thoracic ganglia). can’t believe I wrote that
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Sorry… not sorry…
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Well I almost remembered highschool.
The import part here is that a lobster is a non-euclidian beast from the depths and you can only kill it by consuming it’s flesh during a ritual on the seventh sabbath after Walpurgisnacht.
Potatoes and corn help.
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You don’t ever have to apologize for that song! Of course now it is in my head and will not come out.
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Also surprisingly good with ponzu sauce (Soy sauce + any citrus juice)
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I’m more concerned that the vape had propylene glycol rather than polypropylene glycol (30-mer plus.) So the lobster took a half hour bake and barely cringed when the hot water hit, but really did nothing at an hour of bake…seems legit enough if you cared in the first place.
Reading some Weubshegig Rice and wow, does a lot more happen in Consider The Lobster.
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Well see that’s what I get for trying to blog during an Adderall shortage
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What a weedbrained idea.
Lobsters drenched in weed butter however…
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It does seem like the least efficient way to make pot lobster.
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Place the crustacean in a bucket of ice water. Smoke the doobie. Put on some Pink Floyd. Later, go back with a cleaver (careful with that axe Eugene) and pretend you’re a a squid and nip its head off. The squid would never have been that caring, but then, they don’t realise just how much Lobsters enjoy chilling out to Pink Floyd.
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Bugs are animals.
(edit: removed angry spongebob gif)
Sounds like the scientists were high on cannabis while considering the lobster when it’s high on cannabis.
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“Mermaid Scorpions.”
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