Maine-ly Food, Part 3: Oyster/Erster

While the winter isn't necessarily colder on the coast of Maine than it is in, say, West Virginia (where I reside now), it is longer. You begin to understand clearly why fish and shellfish are so important to the diet of Mainers: it's what you can catch and eat when all else dies.

While coastal Maine has some predictable sea life and sea food, there were some sea-prises for me, and oysters were one of them; I never clearly associated Maine with them.

Many years ago, I had had some very tasty "Glidden Point" oysters once at a restaurant in DC when I lived there, but I didn't know that Glidden Point was in Maine. In fact, it's a point along the Damariscotta River, where the most well-known Maine oysters live and breed. Oysters are common in New Orleans (where they're pronounced like 'ersters') so ordering them in Maine felt like I was home.

My friend Howard and I drove to the town of Damariscotta to see if we could sample a few local raw ones. We stopped at a pub on the main street where they served Daramiscotta oysters all year round. They were not cheap at $2.50 each, but we were there to test the waters. We each slurped 3 and proclaimed them large, plump, and succulent, but very briny. Except for the expense, I might have turned them into oyster stew. I remember the Glidden Points as less salty, perhaps because they're harvested more inland.

In fact, one of the big seafood markets in Portland had a variety of Maine oysters, as well as clams and mussels, so there are many more two-shelled critters to sample. I saw a bivalve chowdah in my future:

For comparison, we went to Portland, and ate at J's Oyster Bar on the waterfront, where we tried some oysters which the waitress said were from the Johns River. There were a lightly-briny oyster, more like the Glidden Points I remembered.

But frankly, except for size and brininess, it's hard for me to tell one oyster from another, unless I could somehow get samples from different waters to compare at the same sitting, and even here, I suspect that the taste will vary from season to season.

On a subsequent trip to Portland, we ate at The Farmers Table, where local catches are standard fare. There we had Maine rock crab cakes with homemade herbed mayo, local bread, and local mussels steamed in local beer.

"Local beer? Howard, you didn't tell me there was local beer." We went to the oldest brewpub in Portland, Gritty McDuff's (old here is 1988) and had their Black Fly Stout. Members of the beer club have their own steins all over the walls, ready to be taken down and filled whenever they come in.

I wish oysters and stout went together. Actually, I didn't think the McDuff's-beer steamed mussels at the Farmers Table were an ideal combination. Next time maybe I'll suggest some local Chardonnay from Bar Harbor Winery.

Maine-ly Food, Part 2: Red Lobsters and Red Tides

While Maine has a big variety of seafood, on my first trip there, I wanted to try what they're famous for to see if it was worth all the blather. I have attempted steaming lobsters that I've bought from my local supermarket in West Virginia, but I think that lobsters are essentially unhappy in the mountains, and thus refused to cook properly out of protest.

So the big deal to me on my virgin launch to Maine was having a steamed lobster. My friend Mary Jane had waited for me to come to Eastport for a lobster dinner since she knew I was anxious for the true Maine culinary experience.

We went to the Seaview campground north of the town (actually there is no "south of town" since Eastport is at the end of a peninsula/island, so if someone tries to send you south of town, they're either not local, or they're locals up to no good), an unlikely place for a steamed lobster I thought; on the camp site was an unassuming restaurant for the campers, who got a deal on dinners. Note that behind the bar in the restaurant is a sign that says Bourbon Street. As possibly the only New Orleanian in Eastport, I felt welcomed.

Mary Jane wanted the biggest lobsters they had (it was her birthday), but on this day the best they could do were three lobsters at 2.2 pounds each. Steamed and served with a pound of melted butter, it was simple but sumptuous. MJ was impressed with my lobster dismantling skills, which included all the meat in the head. Having grown up in New Orleans, my crab picking was pretty honed; lobster heads are very like crab bodies.

I wanted to try some other seafood, but lobster was about all that was safe to eat. This sign on a telephone pole near the water tells the tale:

Such paralytic poisons, caused by what are known as "red tides", are not killed by cooking, have no taste, and can paralyze your breathing in 2 hours. You'd basically become the steamed clam you ate. I happily munched on lobster tails, pondered how a carnivorous whelk tasted, and wondered whether some snails were also meat eaters. This made me rethink the slugs in my garden back home. I only spent a couple of days in Eastport, so I would have to wait for another trip for a comparison of clam chowdah DownEast. Or whatever else was not paralytic. In Part III, more fish tails/tales.

Maine-ly Food, Part I: What's for dinnah?

I have a new friend, Howard Solomon, in Bowdoinham Maine and have visited him a number of times over the last year. While the coast is beautiful and the small towns are picturesque, I had no intention of visiting Maine and not sampling local foods, whatever that turned out to be. You won't be surprised that it included lobster. But Maine's seafood stock (pun intended) is loaded with more than lobstah.

Maine's summer is short, so there is no Portland Tomato or Eastport Pepper. There are Maine potatoes, blueberries, and maple syrup. And you can fish most of the year for something, so chowders are staples. So is its pronunciation, as you see by this sign in Bowdoinham:

What kind of fish was in the chowdah was a mystery, but you can bet it had potatoes and milk as a base. In fact, making chowder at home is pretty easy when you have access to the following stuff--"fish parts 29¢/lb", "lobster bodies $1.50/bag"--sold in many seafood markets. I made a nice lobster stock for later:

This specials board from a Portland diner was a delight, with a lot of local catches-of-the-day: haddock baked and chowdered, local Jewell Island scallops, crabcakes, and steamed lobster. I assume that the nachos listed first would be a welcome change in Maine from all that boring, ordinary lobster. (Note to my New Orleans connections: shellfish are never ever boiled like they are in Louisiana; they're always steamed. And neither is anything herbed or spiced.)

The big deal here is the so-called lobster roll. It's basically lobster meat usually with mayo (alternately butter) on a soft hotdoggish roll. Lobster roll aficianodos argue whether a leaf of lettuce should go on the roll, but the anti-lettuce people tend to prevail. It's mostly a summer treat, an in-hand sandwich for warm-weather coastal slumming. If the lobster is fresh, it's wonderful. In my limited experience so far, most places use all claw meat, like the first one below from this diner (which cost $12.95). When I asked about it, their argument to me was that the claw meat is sweeter, and the red color is more visually appealing. Personally, I think it's because the claw meat is cheaper, so the profit margin is higher--tails get shipped to out-of-state markets, claws get put on lobster rolls. Ka-ching.

(Important Note: Lobster tails are technically not tails, but thoraxes, but they would never be called that because it's a dreadful word with no sex appeal, and it sounds like an animal from a Dr. Seuss story. Compare: "I'm eating some tail tonight" vs "I'm eating some thorax tonight." Hmm?)

But in Eastport, my friend there, Mary Jane, took me to a seafood shack that she swore made the best lobster rolls (which cost $13.95). You could watch them haul the lobsters in. I had one there that was mostly "tail" meat, garnished with a hunk of whole claw meat. In addition to mayo and butter, they also offered the option of miracle whip, I suppose for those watching their waistlines. In which case, I'd suggest they forego the chips and the sloppy slaw. I vote it the best I've tasted so far (which includes 4 different ones). The lobster guy wasn't bad, either.