Ravenous,
a food column by Jennifer Brizzi
"A truly destitute man is not one without riches, but the poor wretch who has never partaken of lobster."
--Anonymous
When I was only a little girl but already fascinated with food, I asked my mother what her favorite food was. “Lobster,” she replied. Growing up in Arkansas, the only seafood she ever got to eat was catfish. She only discovered shellfish as an adult, and a huge oval copper pot took up residence atop our refrigerator for occasional family lobster dinners.
Then there were the lobsters I ate as a preteen at rustic lobster shacks on Cape Cod with my friend Chandley and her family. I loved the rare experience of cracking the claws and pulling the reluctant flesh out of its shell, biting into the sweet lobster flesh as the butter ran down my arms. Not far away, and around that time, a 37.4-pound lobster called Big George was pulled out of the sea off the Cape.
A few years later in my life and much further inland, I lived in a Burlington, Vermont apartment after college. My roommates were five guys, the rent was only $87.50 a month and the living room was furnished with tattered and musty furniture that included an old wooden lobster trap for a coffee table. I was living in that house when I met the guy I would marry six years later, and shortly afterwards we moved to Rhode Island together, in my case to leave the cold Vermont weather and to be closer to the ocean, and lobster.
Not long after we moved there, to a tidy studio apartment in Cranston, my boyfriend returned from a trip to visit his parents laden with a quart container packed with lobster meat that his father Angelo had given him. Angelo had made two sauces to go with it, a spicy fra diavolo for pasta and a creamy pink dressing for lobster salad. Angelo worked at the time at a Manhattan restaurant called the Palm where he obtained leftover lobster for his son, although he didn't eat it himself, insisting that the only reason anyone liked it was because of its high price.
After my boyfriend returned from home visits with lots of lobster meat a couple more times, I decided that this was a guy to hold onto, although in coastal Rhode Island we had pretty good access to fresh lobster. There was an all-you-can-eat buffet place that we never went to (buffets are dangerous for us) that featured great heaping piles of lobsters, friends reported. People would tear into it, eating lobster after lobster, throwing away all but the tails. What a crime. To me the claws are the best part, and there is lots of sweet crab-like meat in the body and legs, too.
Some years ago, fueled by my love for lobster and a wish to return to Cape Cod, I went to Wellfleet with my youngest sister Katy. We stayed at a motel that we had rented for the week sight unseen. It was dingy and grubby and we quickly dubbed it Ye Olde Swamp Smell for the stinky odor of the marsh that the cabins overlooked. But after a couple days we got used to it, and all that fresh local lobster was consolation. We had a kitchenette so we could cook it right in our cabin, closing the door against the swampy stink.
Katy has lived in Chicago for years now, and recently, in memory of that Wellfleet week, I shipped her a couple Maine lobsters for Christmas, but I'm not sure how well they traveled.
A few years ago my husband and I went on a road trip through Maine and Canada and one of the meals that has stuck with me was at a simple roadside shack off Route 1 somewhere. As a special they were serving lobster stew with a lobster roll. Usually my husband and I order different things in restaurants, so we can taste more things, but this day we both ordered the stew and roll special. If there are any rules about not serving the same thing different ways at the same meals, that broke it, but damn the rules. Both dishes were simple, creamy and luscious with sweet chunks of the freshest lobster. One was piping hot, one cool, and they didn't clash at all. I returned home with the goal of trying my hand at making my own lobster stew and lobster rolls, but I still haven't dared, afraid it would be disappointing without its set and setting.
A couple years ago I made a forgettable lobster bisque for New Years Eve, not bad but not worth the effort. Simple is best; lobster doesn't need much. My bias for plain-boiled-and-dipped-in-melted-butter has given me so much pleasure that I can only dream of rather than plan other preparations. So I have yet to cook gourmet classics like lobster americaine or newburg or thermidor (although I did have a tasty spiny lobster thermidor in Jamaica once). I have yet to plop it on pizza or make sausage or ravioli out of it. I have not yet grilled it or cooked it a la nage (simmered in vegetable broth). It's just hard for me to trust that any of these are more delectable than eating it plain boiled with drawn butter. Whenever I buy lobster I promise myself I'll do something different with it this time, but I never do.
So I'm not going to give you dozens of suggestions for lobster dishes; for that you need Lobster at Home by Jasper White (Scribner, 1998). So far I haven't read it all but only skimmed its surface, but I like that White gives you everything you need to know about lobster while emphasizing the delight and sensuality of eating it.
In Fish and Shellfish (William Morrow, 1996), acclaimed food expert James Peterson suggests extra virgin olive oil or hollandaise sauce rather than melted butter, and likes to eat his lobsters only partly cooked, so the meat is still translucent and the coral still dark green. I will not dare to say Peterson is wrong, but I just don't agree. I haven't tried lobster that way, though perhaps I should be open-minded, but I've never acquired a taste for undercooked chicken or vegetables either.
When it comes to lobster there is much division and disagreement: whether the claw or tail has the superior meat (my vote's for the sweeter, more delicate claw), whether to boil or steam (I always boil, from habit, but there are some excellent arguments in favor of steaming), whether tomalley (the green liver) is safe to eat or not (once or twice a year it's worth it, in my book), and if big ones are as tasty as little ones (I think so but my husband disagrees).
But most of us agree that it's mighty fine eating, although my other sister Calico has never been a big fan, her only assessment “buttery.” But this summer she kindly took the kids overnight so the husband and I could dine on Connecticut shore seafood without wrestling little limbs. Our first stop after dropping the kids off was Lenny's Indian Head in Branford, just east of New Haven, for a Shore Dinner that featured lobster. I savored it so much, digging for every morsel, that it took me about an hour to make my way through it and the steamers that came with it. My butter got cold, it took so long, and our server endeared herself to me by bringing me some freshly warmed butter for the rest of my lobster.
Now I am craving lobster again and am not sure where to get it. Although my two preschool children love to look at them at the local supermarkets, the denizens of those tanks seem logy and tired. Lobsters in tanks for too long lose weight, perhaps from stress, getting less meaty, the meat shrinks from the shell. Buy only the feistiest ones who swing out their claws wildly when picked up; if the critters are saggy and weary-looking, reject them.
I haven't yet seen any lobsters in the tank at my new favorite fishmonger Sea Deli on Broadway in Kingston, but I believe Adams has them. Gadaleto's Seafood in New Paltz (255-1717) is probably a good bet for those who live nearby; they tell me Maine lobsters are arriving twice a week, presently a lot of new, soft-shells ranging from one pound up to more than two.
Jennifer Brizzi | P.O. Box 48 | Rhinecliff, New York 12574 | U.S.A.
jenniferbrizzi@yahoo.com
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For the love of lobster
