In the lead up to visiting my second and third cousins in Maine (I don’t really know the relationship, I just call them that), I had been told I would eat the local specialty – lobster. This scared me. I don’t particularly enjoy seafood outside of non-fishy-fish – prawns are alright but I’d never order them in a restaurant; scallops make me want to vomit; I don’t touch oysters; and anything with tentacles just creeps me out (although I have tried some very good octopus in Greece.) I can see half of you rolling your eyes right now in a “How can she say this? Seafood is wonderful!” kind of way and all I can say is that my decision to avoid eating it just means there is more for you! So honestly, the idea that I would be eating a large cockroach of the ocean didn’t particularly appeal but I was determined to give it a go.

My first encounter with lobster came in the form of a lobster roll purchased from a local gas station. We were out exploring and in need of lunch and the most obvious option was to grab a lobster roll. They are sold everywhere and are of varying quality but all contain REAL lobster, picked out of the shells by local de-lobster-meaters.

It's a lobster roll

Our lobster rolls were made in front of us and were apparently a “good price” according to our local tour guides. The problem I found with the lobster roll wasn’t the lobster, but the highly sugared bread that had then been dipped in butter and “grilled” (I’d prefer to use the term “fried”) on one side, and the excess amount of mayonnaise added to the lobster. You couldn’t really enjoy the lobster experience and I don’t think I would choose to eat a lobster roll again.

The real experience came one evening when Bob (my second cousin-in-law) purchased 10 lobsters from a local fisherman for an astonishingly low price and then cooked them in sea water for dinner.

That's a lot of lobsters

Less than four hours had passed between the lobsters coming out of the ocean and them being thrown into boiling, death-inducing water so they were remarkably fresh. This is what faced me for my first attempt at lobster eating:

Hello food

After donning a lobster bib, taking deep breaths and being run through the basics of lobster dismantling, I attacked my little red friend. Her claws were the first to go. Tough little creatures with their hard shells and evil pointy bits just to make eating them more difficult. But once you’re in and you dip their flesh into molten butter and pop it into your mouth you discover a whole new world of shellfish. I couldn’t believe how good it was. I have never wanted to eat a sea creature more than I did with Pinchy-Lee. Her body meat was a bit more ‘fishy’ than the claws but I still eat every last bit. And when the offer of another claw came along I couldn’t say no.

I think part of the joy of eating lobster is the mess – we put down a special plastic lobster-eating table cloth and everyone was wearing colourful bibs around their necks. It soon became obvious why this protective gear was necessary as juice and sea water were squirting everywhere.

Super-sized corn cob

We ate the lobster with some locally grown, organic corn which was the biggest, yellowest and sweetest corn I have ever eaten. It was a dinner for the Gods and I think we were all quite disappointed when it was over. A big thank you to Bob, Marijke, Catrina and Nick for delivering one of the greatest meals of my life. And thank you, Pinchy-Lee, for being so damn delicious.