Purists skip the onion and celery
When we heard our friend Darren was planning to visit from Maine we immediately placed an order for lobsters. How can you not when a 1 1/4-pound lobster costs only $5? Well, pity the pour lobster fishermen. This recession has knocked the stuffing out of the lobster market. But we are happy to step up and do our part to support their industry.
At these prices, there’s always the temptation to buy too many. After stuffing ourselves at dinner, we are still looking at several cooked lobsters. In our circle, this can only mean one thing: lobster salad.
Picking the meat from lobsters is nothing to sneeze at. In fact, I would classify the skilled lobster picker as a highly valuable craftsman. Not many people apply for the job. Fewer still bring as much patience, persistence and experience to the task of lobster picking as our friend Shelley.
Shelley grew up in South Freeport, Maine, and thus has a natural affinity with lobster. Still, I have never seen anyone quite so devoted to the art of picking lobsters. Shelley’s goal, of course, is the perfect lobster roll. Besides picking a great heap of lobster meat, there are a couple of requirements for this delicacy. First, the salad to be placed in the roll must be the finest, unadulterated lobster salad. By this Shelley means lobster meat, mayonnaise, salt and perhaps, if she is feeling very generous, a squeeze of lemon. She will not brook celery or onion or mustard or any of the other unnecessary ingredients that lobster roll neophytes seem to insist on.
Secondly, a proper lobster roll must be served on a “top-cut bun.” Perhaps you were thinking the roll was of no consequence, in which case you may well have embarrassed yourself by purchasing hot dog buns for this purpose. Tsk, tsk. As anyone at all familiar with a traditional lobster roll can tell you, the top-cut bun is a must. But just try finding it outside of New England. We bring them home from summer vacation and keep them in the freezer for an emergency.
To make your salad, pick the meat from the lobsters left over from dinner the night before. I usually start by cracking the big claws. Then I separate the tail where the meat can easily be removed in one big piece. Next pull the leg assembly away from the main shell. Use a spoon to scoop up the delectable liver. There is meat to be found around the base of the legs, but digging it out is not easy. You might need some fine tools–such as the picks used for digging walnuts out of the shell–to reach into all the little crevices. This is where every bit of the lobster picker’s patience pays off.
Cut the meat as needed into bite-size pieces, then toss with mayonnaise to taste–just enough to hold the meat loosely together–and season with salt, perhaps a squeeze of lemon.
Since I am no longer eating bread, I served our lobster salad naked next to a green salad from the garden. My wife would have loved a lobster roll for lunch, but since I had violated Shelley’s rule by adding onion and celery to the salad, my wife would have nothing further to do with it.
We are engaging the concerns of a hungry planet--slowly--right here in our kitchen garden in the District of Columbia, one mile from the White House.
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