A LOBSTER TALE

Before “Before”
Before lobster-in-the-crisper possibilities could exist, the lobster had to be living, near Tenants Harbor, and trapped by a lobsterman who brought it to Witham’s Wharf where catches are gathered and sometimes sold. A sign in a nearby window declared that pigs are for sale, too.

Two good books that explain more and better are Colin Woodward’s The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier and Linda Greenlaw’s Lobster Chronicles: The Life on a Very Small Island. Ms. Greenlaw’s book is about Isle Au Haut (Remember Gordon Bok’s song, “The Hills of Isle Au Haut?”), but Coastal small town life and lobsters is more like Tenants Harbor than different. Mr. Woodward’s book doesn’t mention Tenants Harbor on map, in text or index, but he has a good bibliography and discusses at length Monhegan, which is close via Port Clyde, and where, with Tenants Harbor, Jamie Wyeth lives.

Hunger and lobster attitude (“I only eat Maine lobster, preferably bought from the lobsterman”) sent the guilty down the road. Art’s Lobsters (the name may have changed) does not sell retail. Witham’s does. The rest of the tale is best told in pictures.

Fig. #22. Before (in the crisper). Great colors. Not a cuddly look.

Fig. #23. During (in Julie’s hands.) Inaugural lobster use of pot by excellent first-time lobster cooker.

A little wary? Marjorie Standish’s Seafood: Down East Recipes may be helpful. Certainly those of us offering advice about which we knew nothing were not.

Fig. #24. Almost Ready (in the flawed lobster bowl). Great color. Definitely an appetizing look. Hark! Are they cuddling?

Fig. #25. After. Turn around on Sea Street, away from Roseledge Books (near the top of the hill), to reachTenants Harbor’s award-winning Transfer Station (still, to me, affectionately called the dump).

After “After”

Lobster detritus needs quickly to become one with bagged Transfer Station compost if its regeneration (reincarnation?) as next Spring’s effusiveness of rhubarb is to become, with a dollop of ready-whip, the topping on the last of twelve boxes of Dr. Oetker’s organic white cake mix I had to buy to get one from the Coop.

The webcam is ON.