Lobster a l'Américaine | The French Chef Season 1 | Julia Child

Julia Child prepares Lobster a l'Americaine, a great French lobster dish. Julia shows how to pick out a lobster, how to prepare live lobster, including how to saute and flambe lobster and how to make the sauce Américaine.
About the French Chef:
Cooking legend and cultural icon Julia Child, along with her pioneering public television series from the 1960s, The French Chef, introduced French cuisine to American kitchens. In her signature passionate way, Julia forever changed the way we cook, eat and think about food.
About Julia Child on PBS:
Spark some culinary inspiration by revisiting Julia Child’s groundbreaking cooking series, including The French Chef, Baking with Julia, Julia Child: Cooking with Master Chefs and much more. These episodes are filled with classic French dishes, curious retro recipes, talented guest chefs, bloopers, and Julia’s signature wit and kitchen wisdom. Discover for yourself how this beloved cultural icon introduced Americans to French cuisine, and how her light-hearted approach to cooking forever changed how we prepare, eat and think about food. Bon appétit!
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[@RtrdOldRnMamaw]

I’m thankful that Julia has been a presence in my culinary-life for much of my 67 yrs life! She takes the fear and apprehension out of cooking😉❣️

[@gabriellerenick1298]

Love to watch her show.

[@geraldstone8396]

She is awesome

[@ColinCropley]

this is really entertaining and I hope this recipe will be great!

[@outtathyme5679]

Julia’s fire-proof

[@katleman]

Just watched the finale of Julia season 2, which was named after this episode. The opening sentence was taken word for word about the Maine waters, but she didn’t cut up the raw lobster, instead the live lobster was dropped in boiling water. The live lobster was also accidentally dropped, which doesn’t happen here either.

[@74Spirit1]

This was an entertaining scene in the movie "Julie vs. Julia", Julie was hesitant to cook live lobster. Critter wiggling!

[@simonalyneenderz3247]

I believe in the last 25 years, Chefs stab the lobster between the eyes, or freeze them as a commenter typed earlier. Tomalley= the digesrive gland that turns green when cooked(delicacy). Coral=Roe is black fish eggs **The Fish Locker channel has captured many female lobsters with eggs.**

[@funch357]

Isn't the tomalley the lobster's last meal?

[@Glostaboy70]

Try the gray stuff, its delicious !!!

[@cathykrueger4899]

This is a lot of work. And at certain times in the life cycle of a lobster the shells are harder than at other times. I grew up in New England eating lobster and it remains one of my favorite foods. I’ve never seen a raw lobster chopped up so this is all new to me. I can see where this would be an absolutely wonderful dish.

[@gc7820]

The younger the lobster and the softer the shell the better the taste but soft lobsters can’t survive transit from where they’re landed to other locations where people buy them. This causes the paradox that the best tasting lobsters are eaten freshest in places they’re caught like New England and are the cheapest lobsters available (so jammy people like you get the best of it) and the older harder ones that don’t taste as good get sent off around the country where the cost of transport and keeping them alive in tanks etc makes them really expensive.

[@davidh9844]

The way this woman touched and deeply influenced the lives of countless Americans is just unbelievable. RIP Julia. We are better people because of you and the world is a better place because you were in it for us.

[@robbinruffino1201]

Holy moly! She almost set her hair on fire 🔥 !!

[@funch357]

I watched this episode as a kid when I was home sick from school. Fascinated me. Ever since I've been able to brag that I can tell the difference between a male & female lobster. Reviewing this episode after 50+ years, I'm pleased to announce I remembered it correctly.🦞🤓👍

[@michaelalferes7244]

Would love to see these videos in color!

[@Rotary_Phone]

She had a series in the late 60s, early 70s that used to be here on YT (along with the classic, original B&W ones) that were in color....Can't find them anymore other than the occasional clip. Been looking for complete episodes, but can't find them on youtube anymore.

[@clemdane]

"This lobster was killed by my fishman before the show. But they keep right on wiggling for hours."

[@s1234pro]

Thank you.

[@googlebox]

No. That’s not a thing sorry.

[@stinkabella4218]

Does anyone else wonder how tough that lobster is after simmering the heck oit of it?

[@freezypeeps8311]

I was too busy thinking how much pain it was in when she chopped it’s freaking hands off!

[@ChantePierce-kp3uf]

I'm with you ! I stopped watching@@freezypeeps8311

[@michaelalferes7244]

I love Julia! I think she has had a little cognac and vermouth herself! I am so chuckling!

[@IceAintNice]

Your assertion is incorrect and a myth that followed her, incorrectly, for years. 🙄

[@Nunofurdambiznez]

PBS would have fired her if she showed up for filming after one too many, so your adolescent comments are absolutely FALSE!

[@philfaulisi4864]

Funny how she says don’t peel your garlic when using a garlic press and zero garlic came through the press!!

[@Rotary_Phone]

If that's what they did back in the old days that's what you do!

[@philfaulisi4864]

@@Rotary_Phone no, it isn’t. At least 85% of the garlic is wasted with her method.

[@freezypeeps8311]

Exactly this! What’s the point? All she’d have to do is scrape out the lovely crushed garlic. Nothing even comes out when she crushes it. What a waste!

[@RAHoff700]

Such a brave endeavor in just Season 1, complete with miscellaneous noises off-set in the background. And Julia Child never missing a beat, telling stories, and educating all the way.

[@ColinCropley]

it's always important to know which lobster is male or female!

[@markaustin4370]

Wow, you can really hear how much she smoked, even in season one.

[@TheSarahLindy]

Oh Julia… WHACK!😂😂😂

[@KoBo33451]

7:51 No, she's not hacking at a live lobster

[@ElaineEC]

It’s moving!!

[@TimothySpadano]

It’s funny how people are so upset about cutting up a live lobster “oh the port thing” but animals literally eat each other alive every single day😂. I’d definitely rather kill it first, but gosh you people are ignorant. If anyone was paying attention you’ll see she switched lobsters anyway. She was showing the live ones to tell male and female apart, then put them under the counter and brought out a different bowl with a dead one.

[@PTE399]

Someone help Julia with her mike - she usually has it clamped on her blouse?

[@lifelvr9509]

I thought the green mass was tomale. The liver basically. Coral refers to the eggs of the female which are actually coral colored. Am I wrong?

[@steveg2448]

You are correct

[@elizabethcraig5825]

I keep wondering what the “ sand sac” actually is, she doesn’t say.😮

[@anthrax2525]

The sand sac is essentially the lobster's stomach.

[@debbiezullo7056]

Julia did not cut up a live lobster if you continued watching she said that her fish man killed it before she brought it home. I myself put them in the freezer for 30 minutes to rather numb their feelings before I kill them.❤

[@claireclaire0166]

Looks like it was alive and moving 😮

[@pangeaforever]

She said you COULD have your fish monger do it, but then you would have to cook it right away. She is cutting it up while it is still alive and you can see it reflexively recoiling from her cutting down its carapace. I dont know if lobsters feel pain, but I dont think it's right to make a creature suffer any more than is necessary, even if you're going to eat it. That's all

[@freezypeeps8311]

Of course it feels pain. If someone chopped us up while we were alive, wouldn’t we feel pain? Miss Child also ate younger than 3 months old baby cows that have not been allowed to move, much less live. I eat meat. After all we are omnivores by nature. But I make sure to eat animals that have been allowed to live first, and killed quick before being cut and cooked, so as not to torture them to death. We should respect the animals that give their life so we can eat, and treat them well. Not least because the more stress and harm the animal goes through causes more cortisol to remain in the flesh, and disease to spread through the livestock, which is not healthy to eat. I can’t abide veal or lamb. Besides, beef and mutton tastes better, with a more robust flavour from actually having lived. You’re absolutely right about it being totally unnecessary to butcher an animal alive. So callous! I know some chefs freeze them first. Others stab them between the eyes, which would be a quick kill. That would be merciful. We have a duty to be merciful to our food stock, not least to ensure our food supply is healthy, but also because we have evolved enough to enable us to do so. It’s different if we were wild carnivores, that may not eat if they don’t take out the young or vulnerable. We are at the top of the food chain, and are skilled enough to not only domesticate large herds, but also to hunt and fish more efficiently. A quick kill is easy for us, so why not be merciful when we can afford to?

[@ChantePierce-kp3uf]

It was, and it was awful.@@claireclaire0166

[@matt4187]

@@pangeaforeverat 7:50 she says “this lobster was killed by my fish man before the show, but lobsters keep right on wiggling for hours. It’s some kind of a muscular action.”

[@jceepf]

Incidentally Prof. Freeman of Yale claims that there is only one restaurant left in New York that still serves that lobster dish. This is a testimony to the collapse of French cuisine in the USA in particular and the world in general. I blame "nouvelle cuisine " for that.

[@connormcnie4662]

french food collapsed in popularity because most of its primary ingredients exploded in price over the last half century

[@jceepf]

@@connormcnie4662 Well depends what you cook. Here in Japan, not a place recognised for cheap meat, I can buy rognons(kidneys of cow/calf) for almost zero because no one wants them! Many French traditional dishes used the guts and innards. Also notice that the rich pricks switched from fancy French to fancy Italian restaurants in the USA. So prof. Freeman was not talking about ordinary people eating fancy cheeses or foie gras. There I 100% agree with you. The real losers are Chinese restaurants: they cannot convince people to empty their wallets. Not true in Japan were rich people here pay extravagant prices for Chinese food. (We also have cheap Chinese restaurant serving a Nipponised Chinese food, the equivalent of your chop suey or General Tso's chicken)

[@jceepf]

@@connormcnie4662 To be fair, your explanation could be the other side of the same coin. Traditionally French cooking, in the North where my ancestors come from, takes a pig and to quote a French farmer I once saw, only the merde they do not eat..... you make sausages with the intestines, the blood, etc... Nouvelle cuisine is like Japanese cuisine (I am Japanese citizen incidentally), it puts an emphasis on high price/quality ingredients and it also turns the cook into an innovator rather than a preserver of tradition.(Not so in Japan) Here in Japan we eat fugu. In China they eat stinking crucian carp and cook them with skill. I let you guess which is cheaper!!!

[@lifelvr9509]

Seriously, none of these comments have addressed the fact that she is mistaking the tomalley for coral. Tomalley is the liver/pancreas and a possible source of toxins. Coral are eggs found in the female and are CORAL in color. I love Julia, but I'm shocked by this error.

[@AtomicErika]

Not that serious...

[@stillhuntre55]

I heard her say, "the Coral *and* green matter".

[@benschili4957]

Before cooking the coral is a very dark green. They are not the color coral until cooked. The tomalley which she removed with a spoon is a greyish green and it's delicious.

[@jusssayin480]

Julia did say her fish man killed the lobster before the show filmed. But people get real. Lobsters are thrown in boiling water alive or chopped up alive. If you can't handle the idea of that don't eat it.

[@stevepotfora7461]

@Grassy Sands interesting comment. How would you prefer your children to be killed, a sharp knife through the brain or should they be boiled alive?

[@ChantePierce-kp3uf]

I would NEVER cut up a LIVING lobster ! The legs are still moving...

[@Earth67Mars48]

There is no need to filter the roe and tamale through a strainer. It's an unneeded step.

[@hersancoello3]

All these people arguing about if the lobster feels pain or not. Me over hear excited to stabby stab the yummy crustacean, not giving a shit if it tickles or causes the most pain imaginable. The semantics don't matter. I'm gonna eat this lobster and you can't stop me. 😂😋

[@angiejenkins520]

I throw mine live in the boiling water and they taste delicious!

[@ChantePierce-kp3uf]

yes and they die right away...do not overcook

[@alabamagigi2218]

This would be a good episode to colorize. Gray food is not appetizing

[@RtrdOldRnMamaw]

What a shame to introduce so many flavor layers into the gentle, sweet taste of lobster. It stands on its own.

[@ohroonoko]

The notion that fish and crustaceans do not feel pain is not settled science; it is still being studied and debated. But stating they do not have nervous systems is simply not true. They do, just not as complex as other animals.

[@philfaulisi4864]

Where are you getting these episodes from, they’re not for sale anywhere?

[@kimberlyshaw5778]

Why do people get so angry about people expressing concern over the treatment of animals? Don’t make a virtue out of it in reverse by acting like compassion is a weakness.

[@nancydalessandro5190]

Most people kill the lobster first. Seems cruel

[@gigijordan8960]

Thankfully, this part was not of the series on HBO. A total turn off for me. I still worship the woman!!!🥺

[@AshMich]

Touch the lobster, take off glasses, touch the lobster, and put glasses back on 😭🤮 (3:20)

[@christineb1464]

At the very end she says something about if your brave chop it up while it's still alive. Would have been nice if she explained how to humanely dispatch the lobster, because starting with the claws and then up the tail end is certainly not it. And yes, I know the one she cut up was already dead so no complaints on that part

[@LorBell]

Bring back the Julia Child era when anyone could eat what they liked and even show you how it's done and if you didn't like it, you didn't watch. You certainly didn't cry like a baby and presume to know precisely how an animal 'thinks' and 'feels' about anything. Why are vegans even watching this?

[@danamccarthy5890]

What's it to you. Maybe you watch mother's kissing their babies and wonder why. 😏

[@marcellinodadon1103]

_...Americans don't eat our lobster this way..._ 🤔...

[@s1234pro]

OMG! She didn't just cut that lobster's claw off before killing it, did she? OK, no she didn't. I wish she had explained it earlier.

[@ChantePierce-kp3uf]

NO she DID cut it while it was alive and moving

[@elizabethcraig5825]

If I went through all that disgusting prep I don’t think I would be able to eat the poor creature.😮🤢🤮

[@LifeHacks-ut4pc]

Did she really chop off the lobster arms while they were alive? Oh my

[@clemdane]

No

[@LifeHacks-ut4pc]

@@clemdane Yes she chopped off arms of lobster while alive. Very cruel

[@katleman]

@@LifeHacks-ut4pc 7:50 she clearly states her fishman killed it before the show.

[@dmessy91]

Lobsters don't have a central nervous system and cannot feel the sensations we know as pain...stop humanizing things that aren't human

[@lynn1505]

Thank you for instilling some common sense to the comment section.

[@tonyatucciclark2195]

That’s not what the most recent research reports.

[@jf9488]

@@tonyatucciclark2195 the same people that say there’s more than 2 genders? 🙄🙄🙄

[@tonyatucciclark2195]

@@jf9488 ridiculous comment, take it somewhere else

[@jf9488]

@@tonyatucciclark2195 it’s a public comment thread. I can say what I want.

[@callmechia]

All the people crying animal cruelty are somewhat correct-even though for this demonstration the lobster was already killed before being dismembered- I’m pretty sure this original recipe calls for the lobster to be sautéed alive. Which to me is sad. I’d eat it. But I do find that kind of gruesome

[@pwp8737]

nowadays JC would have been arrested for animal cruelty; OMG the woman shows no concern for hacking up a live animal.

[@robynadair1764]

Oh knock it off. The world is cruel and no creature has regard for their food. I hope you apologize to your salad as you chop up those former living things as well.

[@TinCupOutdoors]

I was thinking the same thing untill she said it was killed by her "fish man" prior to the show.

[@davew7247]

omg you worried about this ocean insect feeling pain! do you worry about the slow suffocating fish, when you order a fish dinner? if you do then vegan is the way to go, unless your concern about how the plant feels about having its sex organs ripped off

[@TinCupOutdoors]

Why is everyone against feeling sympathy? All we were saying was to humanely kill the lobster before hacking it into pieces.(exactly what was shown in this video) If your looking to insult people please go somewhere else besides a cooking show from the '60s

[@Kerithanos]

@@TinCupOutdoors Because your "sympathy" is a fucking disease and it's almost solely responsible for the nightmare hell this planet has turned into. Sympathy for criminals, sympathy for parasites, sympathy for deviants, and now even this, sympathy for crustaceans! It's against nature. It is suicide.

[@garyfurr1467]

You are not from france

[@jamesdooling4139]

I love how she made no bones about dispatching the lobster. These days, TV cooks and audiences alike are snowflakes. ❤️

[@cameronaberdeenuk1260]

OMG THAT WAS A LIVE LOBSTER SHE CUT UP. The pain would have extremely intense for that creature. She just said 'whack' and I almost threw up. I have always enjoyed Julia Child even here in the UK, but this made me really gulp in horror.

[@christinamatzen4214]

It was already dead. You can see the cut on the top of the head where the knife went in and killed it. The legs are only moving as she cuts it because she’s moving it around. Biologists say lobsters can’t feel pain anyway because they don’t have pain receptors but I don’t know. I didn’t do a study myself. The most humane way is to put it in the freezer for a few minutes so it sleeps (I can’t remember the word, it’s not sleep) then when you pierce it it won’t feel it. I don’t know personally, I just wanted you to know it was already dead, she didn’t hack you a live being thankfully. There. At 7:55 she says “this lobster was killed by my fish man before the start of the show”.

[@zekelucente9702]

🤣

[@chrisbuckley1785]

She's a true gangsta

[@Marcel_Audubon]

calm thyself, sweetie, there must be something better for you to feign indignity about - she said her fish man had already killed the lobsters- try listening to the whole video before commenting, and even then, consider staying mute

[@christinamatzen4214]

@@Marcel_Audubon I thought I had speaking skills. Well done 👏🏼