Dan and I recently camped on Somes Sound, next to Acadia National Park with two other couples. To the extreme joy of the locals, the sun was shining for a whole day! We were extremely fortunate to benefit from our friends' search on Mount Desert Island for soft shell clams and lobsters while we climbed up the Beehive (a great place to get away from the crowds)
and ate popovers at Jordan Pond House. What a treat to come back to the campsite welcomed by fresh local seafood and a glass of wine. This was my first experience with soft shell clams, also called steamers- wow! I had no idea clams could be so delectable! After you shuck off the creepy black membrane from the neck, you dip it (the clam, not the membrane) in clam broth to wash off the sand, then dip in melted butter and pop it in your mouth. I could have eaten a hundred of them, if there wasn't a delicious lobster boiling for me off to the side. (Thanks to our friends' Keith and Colleen's campside seafood skills!)I say we were fortunate because our friends' difficulty in finding the clams portended the closure of this shellfishery a few days later due to polluted runoff from the heavy rainfalls. A few days later I was reading the Burlington Free Press in North Hero, Vermont, and read about the closure of clam harvesting on the Maine coast. Almost a month later, the shellfishery is still closed- a sign above the shellfish counter at my local Harris Teeter provided evidence. They face the similar problem as all shellfisheries along the coast- rainfall washes bacteria and viruses from human and animal fecal material into the waters, where bivalves filter them and hold them in their flesh. (I never have had the desire to eat raw oysters...) . In particular this summer, the Maine coast has been plagued by a red tide-extremely toxic organisms.
The bacteria and viruses in runoff, and even the red tide, do not affect the lobster fishery, as those crustaceans do not accumulate these organisms in their flesh like bivalves. Lucky for us- we cracked open and enjoyed lobsters at the picnic table looking out over buoys in Somes Sound that marked lobstermen (and women's) trap lines. Eating a lobster is a lot of work that I find well worth the effort.
Right before leaving for New England I wandered into a bookstore looking for a vacation-worthy read to bring, and the first book that caught my eye on the table near the entryway sported a big red lobster claw on the front cover. The Secret Lives of Lobsters, by Trevor Corson, was a perfect fit. This book centers around the lobstermen and women of Mount Desert Island, and provides a great read about the Maine lobster fishery, the natural history of lobsters, and the interplay between scientists, policymakers, and lobstermen in producing a sustainable fishery.
To round out the Maine culinary experience, we snacked on clam chowder in the parking lot of the Dog and Pony Tavern in Bar Harbor (Although the tavern claims a love of dogs, they wouldn't allow our dog friend Willow to join us on their outdoor patio due to their insurance policy). It was still delicious- not too rich, full of clams and potatoes. No need to preface it with "New England" chowder - you would no more likely find the tomatoey version up here than you are to find a "Yankees" pennant in a bar. This is the heart of New England (go Red Sox!). We also picked up a blueberry pie and brought it back to the campsite to warm up over the fire and share with our new campsite neighbors while we huddled under tarps in the steady rain.
The next day as we drove southwest down the coast to head back to Vermont, we stopped for lunch in Belfast, Maine. The Dockfront Family Restaurant served up a lobster roll- lobster salad in a typical hot dog roll -with sweet potato fries. We also split a fried haddock sandwich. Maine seafood is a wonderful treat.
