Just a public service announcement that the hippies at Whole Foods have stoped selling live lobsters becuase they can't be sure that it isn't inhumane treatment of the little river chickens....

Well I talked to the lobsters and they told me they sure as hell rather be in that little salt water tank then in my steamer pot....

http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/16/news/companies/whole_foods/index.htm?cnn=yes

Shouldn't they stop selling meat and chicken as well, as those animals are slaughtered before they are sold for food?

By the by, I always call it Whole Paycheck as well...

It seems that the executives @ Whole Foods have completely gone bonkers now. You are right, Rothko, how hypocritical.

I think the reality is more that they don't make enough money on them to justify the tanks, etc. Follow the money.

i would think this is true of most grocery store lobster tanks.

i have never bought one.

I've purchased live lobsters @ my local grocers &/or local fish markets. And, I've enjoyed & had success many times.

Though, I have to say that I like lobsters, I don't love lobsters. I am not hung up on lobsters like some people. We buy some every once in a while, may be 2-3 times a year.

And, come to think of it, I've never ordered lobster(s) in a restaurant (as a main dish).

I bought a 3 and a 3 1/2 pounder today. They hit their own personal steam room tonight.

I've never seen live lobsters at my Whole Foods. The only ones they carry are frozen cold water tails.

Yes! And 3 1/2 isn't big. I split a 7 pounder with a friend at a restaurant. It tasted fine. Some people think the large ones aren't as good. The two largest I've tasted were at restaurants, a 6 pounder and a 7 pounder, and they were excellent. Years ago, a suba diver brought a 25 pound lobster into a seafood store in town. It was auctioned off for charity and the restaurant that got it made lobster salad out of it, saying it was probably too tough, not to mention too big. There was a picture of it in the paper. The scuba diver must have been very brave to go near that monster. I wish it hadn't been killed.

I love lobsters. But I think the larger the lobster the tougher the meat gets. I'm not sure how old a 7 lb lobster would be, but I would assume pretty old. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy larger lobsters and they taste good.

Others say that the "chicken" lobsters are sweeter--I think they're just like the common 1 1/4 to 2 lb lobsters. The key is how long you cook them. They're typically done when you're able to snap an antenna.

Odd, conflicting beliefs:
-Must wear seat belt while driving 1500 enclosed vehicle with ABS, air bags, and safety glass, but am WAY OUT OF LINE to ask motorcyclist to wear a helmet
-Using pictures of aborted feti to support position is offensive, using pictures of skinned mink for same purpose is perfectly acceptable.
-Male teacher has sex with teen student, women say he should be de-nutted and tossed. Woman teacher does it with teen boy and interviewer asks said teacher if something wasn't right with her husband and home life, aka 'she's a victim, too!'
-Rich urban coworkers loathe hunting yet see no problem in their desire to have the 6000-square foot house on five acres of former woods that has now been appropriately sterilized and replaced with Kentucky Bluegrass rendering it utterly inhospitable to wildlife about which previous concerns were raised.
-Uber-environmentalist Al Gore has four kids while overpopulation remains base root of virtually all environmental problems.
-Selling live lobsters kept temporarily in tanks bad. Selling chickens who spend lives entirely in small, nasty enclosures acceptable.
OK, stop using reason and pop an 01 Donnhoff.

Freddy correct me if I'm wrong but in the New England parlance chicken lobsters refer to size, ie under 1.25 lbs, "quarters" are up to 1.25, "halfs" are up to 1.5 lbs. Softshells are lobsters right after they molt.

Corkage: I'm not sure if there is uniformity in the parlance, but a chick lobster is one that is under 1.25 lbs. Your use of the term "Quarter" can't be right, because if it included lobsters "up to 1.25 lbs", that would overlap with the term "chick", (or "chix"). When ordering them, the next size up is usually referred to as: "Pound and a quarter to pound and a half". And from there, the weights are generally viewed in half pound increments until you get to 3 pounds, and in pound increments after that. For example: I'd like two "two-and-a-half-to-three-pounders" and a "four pounder".

As far as "soft shell lobster" is concerned, I have always heard and used the term "Shedder", but the concept is the same. In the summer, lobsters shed their shell and a new shell lies underneath. This new shell is softer, but not nearly as soft as a soft shell crab. So don't get any ideas that you can eat the shell of a shedder the way you would a soft shell crab. When buying lobsters in shedding season, you want to buy a bigger one than you think you want, because the whole point to shedding is to give the lobster room to grow. So while the lobster's new shell is softer, it is as big as it is going to get. It is the meat inside that will continue to grow and fill out the shell. Until this happens, the lobster has lots of room between the meat and shell which is filled with water and body fluid. So when weighed, the lobster appears to be heavier than it actually is. Once the meat grows to fill up the empty space, you have a lobster of more true weight.

Addressing the posts asking about big lobsters (we buy 6 pounders routinely...our lobster pound sells them for about half the price per pound as 3-4 pounders), the reason people think the meat is tougher is because it takes so long to cook through. But if you poach the meat a la Thomas Keller, (kill by submerging in boiling water, but take out immediately thereafter), and break the lobster down into raw meat chunks, and then poaching the pieces of meat for a couple of minutes, you'll never know that you started with a behemoth. But boil a 6 pounder for half an hour and the meat will indeed be a bit tougher than a chick that was cooked for only 6 minutes.

Corkage, I think JimmyV is right on the money. It's surprising being from Maine I think I can count on one hand how many times I eat lobster a year. Not that I don't really enjoy it but it ends up being something we eat at holiday's and when relatives roll into town. Now the term "River Chickens" is just something we call lobsters becuase well I guess just because. That said I got some swordfish at Simpsons on the way into Boothbay last weekend that I swear was so fresh it was still twitching.

Thanks for the clarification, I plan on eating a bunch o' lobster when we're up on the Cape this summer.

give me a call I'll come eat lobsters with ya!