Like many of the finer things in life, Bon Appétit only gets better with age. In Cooking From the Archives, we revisit recipes from the magazine’s past.
I murdered a lobster. It was a killing lacking in mercy, a crime scene of green-gray goo splayed across the cutting board, tiny claws painstakingly spasming. And like many criminals before me, I was just following orders.
The year was 1978. Bon Appétit‘s New York correspondent, the prolific Zack Hanle, filed what might be the best headline to ever appear in the magazine’s pages. “Gentlemen: Man Your Skillets.” Dek: “Julie Dannenbaum Teaches Busy Executives to Cook with Flair.” Julie Dannenbaum was a cooking-school teacher and author in Philadelphia, and when this woman talks about flair, she means it.
The night of Hanle’s visit, the menu in which these “busy executives” were schooled included squab à l’orange, sautéed fluted mushrooms, meringue torte with chocolate buttercream, matchstick potatoes, and—bien sûr—lobster flambé. Dannenbaum’s directive to these men, and, as of last night, to me: “There is a faint cross on the shell where the lobster’s head joins the body. Plunge tip of sharp knife into this cross. Turn lobster over and split lengthwise through head, body, and tail.
Remove the gelatinous sack just behind and between the eyes and the long intestinal vein attached to the sack.”
Fluted Mushrooms, Sautéed Cherry Tomatoes, and Squab à l’Orange stand ready, April 1978; photo: J. Barry O’Rourke
Okay. Where do I even start. Lobster in my traif-free childhood was
an enigma wrapped in equally enigmatic bacon. We were told that we would
be allowed to decide for ourselves whether we wanted to eat it—along
with similarly withheld shrimp, pork, and so on—when we turned 18, and
my older sister promised that she would celebrate that passage to
adulthood at a restaurant that seemed to us to be the pinnacle of luxury
and exclusivity and freedom: Red Lobster. Slightly less rebellious than
she, I didn’t eat lobster until after college, but I’ve been making up
for lost time ever since. And yet, with no childhood of Maine summers
and lobster boils to speak of, I harbored a lot of anxiety about
actually cooking one.
Now, my usual vibe for “Cooking from the Archives” is to barely read the recipe, steamroll my way through it, and then show up in the Test Kitchen the next day and ask what I did wrong. But for Lobster Flambé, I needed some coaching.
“Why don’t you just drop it in boiling water?” suggested Claire Saffitz, Bon Appétit’s assistant food editor. I gestured to the article, to Hanle’s depiction of the cooking class attendees: “Chances are he’s a doctor, lawyer, actor, advertising man, designer, or scientist with a strong penchant for entertaining,” she wrote. (Spoiler alert: Zack Hanle was a woman.) “He looks forward to his four-session evening course—not only for the new skills and dishes he will master, but for the ambience of the school and the teacher’s perceptive wit.” In summary, this was “Gentlemen: Man Your Skillets,” not “Gentlemen: Bring a Pot of Water to a Boil”! This was about being a “man.” Stabbing a lobster between the eyes.
Killing it with your bare hands. And then lighting cognac on fire and pouring it all over the sautéeing lobster. My point made, Claire suggested placing the lobster in the freezer for a few minutes to slow it down so that it was easier to hold in place while I stabbed it. But her main piece of advice was to be sure to yell “Je flâme!!!” when I lit the cognac on fire.
“The king of shellfish requires nothing more than lemon and melted butter to bring out its rich, sweet flavors.” Bon Appétit April 1978; photo: J. Barry O’Rourke.
All that was left was to purchase the lobster. I tried to think of a
place where money had no meaning, a place I might shop at if I were a
private chef cooking up an impromptu Lobster Thermidor for my
foodie-banker client. What I’m trying to say is that I went to Eataly.
They were sold out. Whole Foods? Nope. The Internet suggested The Lobster Place
in Chelsea Market, which was open until 9pm. It was currently 8:40pm. I
don’t usually live so extravagantly, but there I was, hopping in a cab
from Eataly to get to Chelsea Market to buy a lobster on a Thursday
night. I ended up with two 1 3/4 pounders, and the salesman placed the
squirmers carefully into a plastic bag. This was happening. “So, okay,
um, yeah, my friend said to put it in the freezer so that it will slow
down a little before I stab it between the eyes,” I rambled to the
lobster handler. “Does that sound to you like it will work?”
“How soon are you cooking it?”
“In ten minutes.”
“I can just kill it for you right now.”
“….” Continue reading
I murdered a lobster. It was a killing lacking in mercy, a crime scene of green-gray goo splayed across the cutting board, tiny claws painstakingly spasming. And like many criminals before me, I was just following orders.
The year was 1978. Bon Appétit‘s New York correspondent, the prolific Zack Hanle, filed what might be the best headline to ever appear in the magazine’s pages. “Gentlemen: Man Your Skillets.” Dek: “Julie Dannenbaum Teaches Busy Executives to Cook with Flair.” Julie Dannenbaum was a cooking-school teacher and author in Philadelphia, and when this woman talks about flair, she means it.
The night of Hanle’s visit, the menu in which these “busy executives” were schooled included squab à l’orange, sautéed fluted mushrooms, meringue torte with chocolate buttercream, matchstick potatoes, and—bien sûr—lobster flambé. Dannenbaum’s directive to these men, and, as of last night, to me: “There is a faint cross on the shell where the lobster’s head joins the body. Plunge tip of sharp knife into this cross. Turn lobster over and split lengthwise through head, body, and tail.
Remove the gelatinous sack just behind and between the eyes and the long intestinal vein attached to the sack.”
Fluted Mushrooms, Sautéed Cherry Tomatoes, and Squab à l’Orange stand ready, April 1978; photo: J. Barry O’RourkeNow, my usual vibe for “Cooking from the Archives” is to barely read the recipe, steamroll my way through it, and then show up in the Test Kitchen the next day and ask what I did wrong. But for Lobster Flambé, I needed some coaching.
“Why don’t you just drop it in boiling water?” suggested Claire Saffitz, Bon Appétit’s assistant food editor. I gestured to the article, to Hanle’s depiction of the cooking class attendees: “Chances are he’s a doctor, lawyer, actor, advertising man, designer, or scientist with a strong penchant for entertaining,” she wrote. (Spoiler alert: Zack Hanle was a woman.) “He looks forward to his four-session evening course—not only for the new skills and dishes he will master, but for the ambience of the school and the teacher’s perceptive wit.” In summary, this was “Gentlemen: Man Your Skillets,” not “Gentlemen: Bring a Pot of Water to a Boil”! This was about being a “man.” Stabbing a lobster between the eyes.
Killing it with your bare hands. And then lighting cognac on fire and pouring it all over the sautéeing lobster. My point made, Claire suggested placing the lobster in the freezer for a few minutes to slow it down so that it was easier to hold in place while I stabbed it. But her main piece of advice was to be sure to yell “Je flâme!!!” when I lit the cognac on fire.
“The king of shellfish requires nothing more than lemon and melted butter to bring out its rich, sweet flavors.” Bon Appétit April 1978; photo: J. Barry O’Rourke.“How soon are you cooking it?”
“In ten minutes.”
“I can just kill it for you right now.”
“….” Continue reading
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