A Tail of Two Lobsters

“What the Dickens ( I know, I know),” you may ask, “is Papa Fork doing writing this guest post?” Well, the Forkster, in a move that would have made Tom Sawyer proud (“Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”) offered me this opportunity on Father’s Day, so here I am.

Last Friday afternoon, I called Mama Fork from work and asked what she thought of a little antiquing trip to Maine—like, the next day. It’s not a long trip from our house near Boston, since after all, Maine was actually part of Massachusetts until 1820. Apparently, the Downeasters grew tired of the bad Massachusetts horse and buggy drivers and went their own way.

It usually takes us about 90 minutes get to the first antique shop along Route 1 in Maine and from there you can find one about every ten feet all the way to Bar Harbor. But at this point in our antiquing lives (thirty-five years or so, tracing back to my first paycheck as an adult) the reality is we’ve kind of “fished out” the Maine coast (I know, I know) as far as antiques that interest us go.

Which brings me to food. The antiquing quest in Maine is really just good cover for hunting down that proudest of all crustaceans, the Maine lobster (homarus americanus). It turns out that if you are on the Maine coast, this hunt is relatively easy. You just need a little experience to know where old homarus lurks. For Mama Fork and me, those lobster hideouts are called...restaurants. And since this is only going to be a day trip, one must make the ultimate sacrifice by having the same thing for both lunch and dinner.

First stop is lunch at the Maine Diner in Wells. You want to get there by 11:45 a.m. or so, because it draws a crowd. As in, long lines and those flashing, buzzing thingies that signal your anointment. I hate them in less interesting restaurants and avoid those places at all costs, but somehow the buzzers are okay here because of the reward. If you do have to wait 15 minutes, you can go next door to the diner's souvenir shop with the impossibly cute (caution, historical note approaching) moniker of "Remember the Maine."

Buzzer flashes, seats are taken.

Papa Fork and Mama Fork do not consult the menu. Mama has the lobster roll, excellent as usual, but since this is my blog post, we’re going to discuss the lobster pie. It tastes every bit as good as the picture looks. And if you consult the recipe, how could it not, given the ingredients.

A word about tomalley, here. Those of you who partake of the pleasures of the lobster, you’ve seen it, know it and probably avoid it. It is, after all, green sludge that passes as the lobster’s liver. But when small quantities are mixed into a pie, it really enhances the taste. As an aside, Health Canada cautions not to eat the tomalley of more than two lobsters a day. Apparently the standard of living in Canada is considerably higher than I had imagined for a country whose dollar coin is called a Looney and whose two dollar coin is called a Twoney. I eat two lobsters a year…

It’s 1 p.m. now and there are four hours to kill before dinner, so antiquing we go. A fair amount of time is spent driving farther north to Wiscasset for its twenty-five or so shops. Soon enough, though, it’s time to point the car south again to Cape Porpoise, just next to Kennebunkport (yes, where Poppy and Barb live). Our destination is Nunan’s Lobster Hut.

Nunan’s is what a lobster shack is like in Heaven (assuming they don’t keep kosher up there). The outside, as you can see, is just so cute you want to pinch it. The inside is an immaculate assemblage of benches/tables all fastened to a floor covered by about a hundred coats of shiny gray deck enamel. My sense has always been that at the end of the night they just come in the front door with a fire hose, open the back door and blast all the detritus out into the salt marsh behind the building. But I could be wrong.

It’s now 5 p.m. and we’re there just in time. They open at 5 and by 5:05 on anything resembling a summer night, the place is full. Of course, you could also show up at 6:15 and catch the second shift, but when you had lunch at noon, you’re hungry, right?

Again, no need to consult the menu. An order of steamers (steamed clams for the uninitiated) is shared as an appetizer. But the serious business is picking out what kind of lobster you want. Not how it’s cooked, they’re all steamed (with this specific technique), but rather how large, whether you want one or two and--for some of us--the gender.

As to the number, I’m not big on the twin lobster thing. First of all, how do you know they’re really twins—there’s no time for DNA testing, you’re hungry. Second, I’d rather have one big thing than two little ones. Third, the consumption of the homarus is a particularly labor intensive task and I prefer not to double that work.

Size? I’m going for 2 pounds, because if I’m only getting one or two of these babies a year, let’s make it worth remembering. What’s left is the choice of boy or girl. For me it’s the girl, because inside she has orange roe, a charming cross between caviar and the little wax coke bottles from the penny candy store when I was a kid.


What comes with my fair lady? A bun, which I leave on the plate unless the beclawed main feature's arrival is delayed. A bag of chips--we’re not wasting calories on that. Two dill pickle slices—never tried them. And of course, a few little paper cups of melted butter, which are essential for dipping the succulent lobster meat. When the best meal of the year is finished, all that remains is the shell and, of course, the lovely scent of lobster on your hands that will remain, no matter what is used to try to remove it, for a good 24 hours. But who's complaining? Pop in the Simon and Garfunkle and "Homeward Bound" it is.