Boiling Lobster

I was rarely exposed to lobster while growing up in Ontario, the expensive seafood was served at fancy restaurants but not in the average home, especially not in OUR home!  When I moved to Bequia in the 70’s I discovered that, although quite abundant, lobster was not usually cooked in local homes. Bequians didn’t like it nearly as much as they liked fish – Mac’s mother certainly didn’t prepare it in her ever-busy kitchen.  Momma mainly cooked fish, and sometimes turtle, conch and whelks, but never lobster, a seafood considered a luxury in the rest of the world. Lobster was present in the Frangipani’s pasta salad on buffet nights, and Julie’s guest house sometimes made lobster thermidor for guests, but that was about IT – lobster simply wasn’t a big deal on Bequia back then!

Times changed quickly, and when Mac’s introduced lobster pizza in 1980 I was hard-pressed to keep up with demand. I quickly learned that we had to stock up on lobster well before December if we wanted to have any come February, the divers always disappeared to the Cays after Christmas, or gave excuses about strong tides to justify the lack of supply. Therefore, as SOON as the season opened in September Mac and I bought copious amounts of lobster, boiling, cleaning and then freezing it for the upcoming tourist season. This was done over a wood fire in less-than-ideal locations depending on where we were living, and I was therefore grateful when Nik came up with an easier and certainly more sanitary method of boiling and cleaning the massive piles of lobster.

After Mac’s death Nik purchased the property adjacent to mine at Belmont, and he proceeded to transform part of it into a seafood preparation area for me, with double sinks, proper drainage and large counter spaces. He got a welder to make a huge cauldron with handles, and an equally large wire basket. The basket could be attached with clips to a clever hoist, allowing it to be lowered and raised while cooking the lobsters, then swiveled so that the contents could be tipped out onto the counter.  A large commercial “cracker” fed with propane was positioned under the cauldron to boil the salted water, and cooking copious amounts of lobster became an easier process, MUCH easier.

Brian, a Pizzeria employee who had started out as my gardener, was in charge of processing any fish or lobster I purchased for the Pizzeria. It was a treat to watch him deal with a couple hundred pounds of mahi-mahi; Brian would wade in with a scaler and sharp knife and quickly scale, clean and fillet the fish like a pro, then pack the large fillets in plastic bags for freezing. He was also a master when it came to coping with huge piles of lobster – weighing, boiling until just firm, cleaning and then bagging the precious tails, legs and antennae.  The backs were bagged separately for lobster bisque stock, and the rest returned to the sea. It was important to use every possible scrap of edible lobster, because once cooked and cleaned the meat represented just a third  of the original weight, something I had to bear in mind. The price of lobster had gone from $6 EC a pound to $12 EC, making the cleaned lobster about $36 EC per pound. The shells weighed a lot and, although I made stock with them, they could not be eaten!

Brian appreciated the new prep area for seafood, it was a lot better than standing over a wood fire in the open! With a roof over his head, ample counter space and running water, dealing with fish and lobster became a less onerous and much more sanitary chore, especially with the hoist Nik had invented for the massive lobster pot.

Thanks Nik, I appreciated it too!