Maine Lobster comes in a variety of different product forms to meet the needs of varied tastes and uses.
Live lobster provides the freshest lobster available and allows the chef to use the whole lobster, including the meat for select dishes, the shell for stocks and the roe for additional flavor in a variety of dishes. Whole boiled or steamed lobster is also a classic and appealing dish. Live lobsters should be feisty, not sluggish or listless, and they should feel heavy for their size. When you lift them, their tails should curl and they should flail at you with their claws.
Lobsters are wild caught daily. Lobstermen never know what size they are going to get until they open the trap! Every now and then, they catch a whole live cull lobster.
Q: What is a Cull Lobster?
A: Simply, a Cull is a lobster that has lost one of its claws.
What you should know about ordering Culls:
- You do not choose the size of the lobster.
- Culls are sold by the pound, not the piece.
- Culls cost less per pound than whole live lobsters.
- They can still be used for "fancy" dinner parties.
- They tend to yield more lobster meat.
- They are perfectly healthy.
The customers that have discovered and experienced live cull Maine lobsters tend to stick with Culls. They get the same awesomely fresh flavor of a live lobster, and save a couple of bucks at the same time. Win/win!