Cape Karen
I'm craving . . . the North American lobster, a mysterious creature that smells with its antennae, tastes with its feet, hears with its legs, has teeth in its stomach, and has remained virtually unchanged for 100 million years.
It feels like 100 million years since I've enjoyed a fresh, Maine boiled lobster. When I went to the Cape last year, I did have a couple of lobster salad rolls and a baked stuffed lobster - I even had some littleneck clams, dug fresh from the Cape Cod clam beds - but I never did get to have my favorite dish... a boiled lobster dinner.
As the heat index today soars to 105 degrees, with humidity so thick that just breathing is a chore, and as exhaust fumes, from the thousands of cars on our Parkway, are spewing unhealthy ground ozone all over this valley - I really want to go home, breathe some nice ocean air and eat fresh New England seafood again. This is the time of year when being homesick hits its peak for me.
Why am I sitting here, craving lobster, littleneck clams, fresh salt air and ocean breezes, when they're only two days away by car? Because I've yet to receive my new license plates and tags, so my newly purchased car, that I bought for just such travels, is still uninsured. But my cravings don't know that, and they aren't happy to wait. They want it all... right now!
Some might ask, "Why would anyone crave eating a creature that has teeth in its stomach and two strong front claws that could break a finger in two?" Well, unless you've been raised in New England, or have gone there and experienced the incredible taste of this ancient crustateon's sweet meat, dipped in melted butter, you probably can't understand such a craving.
There are lobsters in the south, and all over the world, but they just aren't the same as Homarus Americanus. I tried eating a lobster from the Gulf of Mexico when I was in Cancun, years ago, and it smelled and tasted like rotten fish. I even tried purchasing a small lobster here, from a grocery store fish tank; it not only looked like a small, black beetle, it tasted even worse. I've been to The Red Lobster restaurant, hoping to find that what they advertise as "fresh Maine lobster tail" is true. Oh, it's a Maine lobster tail alright, but it sure isn't fresh. Sawdust came close to what the long-frozen meat looked like. I didn't even bother to taste it... I just wanted to cry.
There's a real art to eating a boiled lobster, too. One has to learn how; the younger, the better. If you've ever seen grown adults trying to eat a lobster for the first time at a restaurant, with those silly plastic bibs placed over their shirts, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Other than shucking clams, mussels, scallops and oysters, I can't think of another food that we have to actually learn how to 'get-at' in order to eat it.
But it's worth it - a fresh Maine lobster is the best!