The Enduring Maine Lobster Mystique
The WASP ethos of “No Reserved Seats For the Mighty,” and the more practical question of how to find the best Maine lobster. And best lobster roll.
All color photos by/of Muffy Aldrich
The dreaminess of Maine lobster has been around seemingly forever, and shows no sign of abating today. Glance at social media and the lobster icon is ubiquitous—on sweaters, hats, belts, Monopoly sets, etc.
(And as an aside, I do have mixed feelings about the overuse of icons and motifs—”Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” and all.)
But there is good reason for that—Maine lobster truly is magnificent. It’s not just that the lobster tastes good. It does. (But you dip anything in a your personal reservoir of melted butter, and you’re off to a good culinary start.)
It is more because it is an all-inclusive package, which includes the geography and the culture around it.
At its heart, the fierce independence that drives someone to wake up, every day, in the wee hours of the very dark mornings to head to a tucked away harbor, which at the beginning and the end of the season is, well, not warm. To head out, often alone, with only a bright spotlight leading the way to start pulling traps. (This is not the time for celestial navigation.)
It is a way of life, where nepotism is a mark of culture and continuity, not incompetence and line cutting. Where there is a code of trust amongst lobstermen. (And yes, there are more women these days, but they are still called lobstermen.)
Up and down the Maine coast are countless yards scattered with lobster boats. And traps. And buoys.
Obviously, lobstering can be found all over. But in Maine it is different. Growing up on the Connecticut shore it was unthinkable that my parents would allow me to eat the lobster from Long Island Sound. We had to wait for Maine. The waters of Long Island Sound are much cleaner these days, but still, I wait for Maine.
When in Maine, as a child, I dearly loved the lobstering culture. I would hear the aforementioned lone passing of a pick-up truck heading down to the harbor at around four in the morning. A few minutes later, another one. Then the silence again. (The Maine coast is incredibly silent at night.)
This would be followed shortly after by the not so silent sounds of the boat engines on the water, heading out. Jumping out of bed, I could see that lone light on the lobster boats, sometimes paralleling the single star-like glow of Mercury or Venus.
The boat engines would throttle down and up, down and up, as they went from trap to trap—pulling, emptying, pulling, emptying. Then the rhythm would be be broken by a stronger engine sound as it headed out to the next cluster of traps. Every lobsterman has his own traps clearly marked with his own buoys, and nobody else messes with them. Ever.
