Maine’s clean, cold waters produce some of the world’s tastiest lobster. This hard-shelled crustacean has a long body and five sets of legs, including two large front claws, one large, flat, and heavy and the other smaller, thinner. They don’t like light, hiding by day and emerging at night to eat mussels, sea urchins, and crabs. Most are at least seven years old by the time they are caught, because Maine regulates the minimum (also maximum) size of what can sold. The state also prohibits catching pregnant females, and imposes trap limits and license controls. In the 1880s most lobster was canned. Currently 90 percent of what’s caught by Maine’s 7,500 lobstermen is shipped live, out of state. For more on the industry see www.lobsterfrommaine.com.While lobster is just another item on the menu elsewhere in the world, in Maine it’s an experience.

EATING LOBSTER
While elsewhere it’s appeal may be the fanciful ways it’s prepared, in Maine it’s the opposite. The shorter the time between a lobster’s last crawl—not in a restaurant tank but in its home waters—the better. The preferred cooking method: 10–15 minutes in boiling seawater for an average-size (1 to 1 1/2 lb.) lobster. Selecting the lobster is a bit more complicated. Choices may include a “cull” (a lobster with one claw), a “chicken” (a female, usually 1 pound, and considered to have the most delicate meat), and “hard shell” or “soft shell.” Lobsters molt, usually shedding their shells in summer. The soft shell fills with sea water, which is replaced by new meat as the animal grows and the shell hardens. Which is better depends on who you talk to. Many prefer “shedders” because the shells are easy to crack and the meat is sweet. These actually transport less well than the full and firmly meated “hard shells,” so chances are you won’t have a chance to sample one outside Maine. How to eat a lobster is a no-holds-barred experience best embarked upon (and always explained) at lobster pounds. read on about where to eat lobster   

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