Charlotte’s Legendary Lobster Pound, found in Southwest Harbor, Maine, has a new idea for how to humanely kill a lobster: Get it stoned first. Owner Charlotte Gill claims that she tested the effects of weed smoke on a lobster named Roscoe, according to Eater, when she put the lobster in about two inches of water inside a covered box, then pumped smoke into the liquid in sort of a water-bong scenario. She later put the lobster back in the tank with other lobsters for three weeks — Roscoe need not have an claw bands, and Gill said that the stoned lobster was much calmer. During those three week, he never once wielded his claws as a weapon through his tank mates. Gill hopes to have a process in place the sedate all her lobsters before cooking by next season.
Hotbox before a hot pot? A Maine restaurant owner says she calmed a lobster with pot smoke. Now she’s considering letting customers order lobster that’s gotten ‘baked’ before it gets boiled. pic.twitter.com/W6JJVkK3C6
— Morning Express with Robin Meade (@MorningExp) September 20, 2018
The inspiration for this technique comes from Switzerland. The country banned the practice of boiling lobsters alive earlier this year, and instead suggests stunning methods such as electrocution or a stab between the eyes prior to cooking the shellfish. But Gill thought those were both “horrible options.”
Instead, Gill, who has a medical marijuana caregiver license, plans to smoke up her lobsters with her homegrown plants before she boils them.
“THC breaks down completely by 392 degrees,” Gill tells the Mount Desert Islander. “Therefore we will use both steam as well as a heat process that will expose the meat to 420 degree extended temperature, in order to ensure there is no possibility of carryover effect (even though the likelihood of such would be literally impossible).”
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