Shmegalamonga: Maine stuff. (MC #4)

All the grub unique (or close enough) to Maine.

Lobstah!!!

Yep, it's kinda what we're known for.

People who are sissy-babies about the shell and the face most often opt for a lobster roll.
Same as a crab roll, they strip it, chop up the meat, mix it with mayo, and stuff it in a sub roll.

I grew up with these things, so I'm fine with the mutilation.
Tastes fresher, hot is better than cold, and dipping it in drawn butter is better than cold mayo.

Oh, I wouldn't spit out a lobster roll, or encourage anyone to do likewise, I'm just saying.

Hard to describe the flavor to someone who's never had it.
If you're raised on beef, pork & chicken, it's not like any meat you've had before.
It's...*thinks* light, sweet, creamy, a rich-creamy-chewy mouth feel.
It's the closest flesh gets to being candy.
It's a delicacy for a reason.

That's why you always see it with butter and corn.
The sweetness contrast with the salty of the butter, and the richness contrasts with the juicy-fresh of the corn.

And lobster meat doesn't keep well no matter what you do, so you you've gotta devour it.
If you buy one, and sissy out, you've wasted it, there's no going back.

Maybe, MAYBE a couple days in the fridge, but you better get your ass wolfing.

It's why we boil them alive, you can't just mercifully murder them, and keep them raw in deep freeze like chickens, pigs, and cows.
Nope, we don't do the boiling thing for sexual jollies, it's a biology thing.
This is just how it has to be done.
They're a strange creature.

Shrimp!!

Um....whoops, we've over-fished the shrimp.
Our shrimp fishermen have been paid to stay home a couple years for them to regenerate.

Well, they shouldn't have been so fucking delicious.

Vaguely similar in taste and texture to lobster, but...not quite there.
Again, lobster is hard to compare to anything else.
Shrimp is as close as you can get.

And the tail meat is the only edible part of shrimp.
Lobster, you get tail, claws, bits of the body, and the little side legs.
The green liver of lobster used to be a thing, but now mercury collects there, and you should avoid that. It's visually unappealing anyway.

Scallops!!

Meat marshmallows!

Mmmm-mmm!!

The bit you eat is the muscle that opens and closes their shell.
They get quite the workout.
Unlike clams that burrow into the mud, scallops frigging swim!
They either flap their shells, our shoot water jets out their ass end.

A neat little creature.
But, again, they shouldn't have been so fucking delicious.

Three ways to have these, plain, bacon wrapped, or batter fried.
Batter fried, they go with tartar sauce.
Plain or bacony, take 'em as-is.

Haddock!!

Ssss....again, like with the shrimp, I think we've over-fished these guys.
I've heard even with precautionary steps taken, they might go extinct.

So....eat up while we've got em!!

As with the other three above, there's no oily "fishy", taste with these guys.
Landlocked people are fucking terrified of that for some reason.
No, they're not like tuna or sardines.

Haddock especially is the cleanest tasting fish you can get.
Almost like water.
With a little bit of sweet.
A delicate mouth-feel, it crumbles in your mouth, you barely even have to use your teeth.
Like, really, a little old lady with no teeth could chow down on haddock.

And the delicate flavor/texture contrasts so well with fried crust.
And then tartar sauce just brings it all together.

*Drool*

Frankly, I like a good fish n' chips with haddock better than anything else.
I'll have an annual lobster to keep my Maine membership card, but any other time, gimme fish n' chips.

If I had my choice, I'd have scallops instead of fries, but scallops are expensive.
They're the cashews of the sea.

Clam cakes!

Oh, yeah, why didn't I list clams?
...I...don't like 'em.
I can get 'em down, but they're not my favorite thing.
I'd devour 'em no problem in a starvation situation, but in my privileged perch in a civilization?
I won't go out of my way to choose 'em.
BUT, grind 'em up, mix the goo with flour, bread it with more flour, and fry it up into a patty?
Scruumptious!

MUST be eaten with tartar sauce.
For some reason, tradition forbids you to shove 'em into a burger bun.
Fuck that, put it in a bun if you want.
I give you permission.

Red snappahs!!

So called, because the old-style natural casings literally "snap", when you bite them.
It's like biting a balloon!

For the longest time, I didn't know these were just a Maine thing.

Old-timey cartoons have red hot dogs.
The hot dog men in "Burgertime", are red.
Where do people think this came from?

I thought that either the rest of the country had them, or at least, people knew they were red somewhere in space and time.
Nope, I brought them up to a friend, and she acted like I was from Jupiter.

It's like Moxie; used to be national, and retreated back to Maine.

So, do they taste different?
Ehhh...not much.
A teensy weensy bit sweeter.
They go better with bright yellow mustard, while brown ones go better with either yellow or brown.

I don't have a preference, whatever's cooking, I'll eat it.

If you're gonna have a cookout with lobster, shrimp, clams, and corn, may as well go the whole rest of the way, and have burgers and red snappers.

Maple syrup.

Ohhhh la de daaah!!
We're Vermont!!
We're Vermont, and we've got syyyruuupp!
Ohhh, look at us and our syrup, we're Vermooont!
Ohhhh la de fucking daaahhh!!

We've got maple trees too, assholes.
And our tourists don't have to put up with snooty rich assholes in Cosby sweaters.

Maine, our syrup is just as good, and we're not snooty assholes about it.
Pull up a chair, and a pancake.

Wild blueberries!!

Oh, we've got the standard big fat farmed kind too.
But nothing is like a wild blueberry.
They're little sourballs.
If you get one that's juuust changing from red to purple to blue, like right in the middle of going ripe, mmm, it zaps you right in the saliva glands like a Warhead.
Yum!

But, they're the plant version of lobster, they don't travel well after picking, so you kinda have to eat 'em here.

I like 'em best plain off the bush, but they're also good cooked into a pancake, or in a bowl with milk and sugar on 'em like cereal.

Pumpkins.

Yeah, yeah, other states have pumpkins, but we really do it up.

One of the local farmers decorates an old oak tree with Jack-O-Lanterns like a Christmas tree, and we've got guys that grow giant ones for the Fryeberg Fair (see below).

Other states do that?
Fuck you!
Do you get clam cakes at your pumpkin fair?
Do yah?
No?
All right then!
Shut up back there!

Potatoes.

Yeah, yeah, Idaho beats us in potato production.
Shut up!
We're still way up there on the list.

Our big two breeds are Russets and Reds, but we do a little bit of everything else.

Potatoes are a miracle food, when you really think about it.
All the different ways you can cook them, and never get sick of 'em, cuz every dish tastes different enough.

I guess they're Kryptonite if you're carb conscious though...

Fahamah's Mahkets!!

Yep, our farmers will just use their own back yard, and open a store, and you can get your fancy produce there.
Like the aforementioned potatoes, pumpkins, blueberries, and corn.
And blackberries, and raspberries, and rhubarb, and squash, and carrots, and green beans, and peas, and all of the above canned.
And greenhouse flowers.
Sometimes, they have pies.

Dad's favorite is Frugal Farmers (pictured above) on Rankin Road.
Which he insists on calling just "Rankin Road", cuz for decades, they didn't have a name, just a stand.

It's a little bit of old-timey still left.
I like it.

Fryeberg Fair!!

Every town has an anniversary fair, but Fryeberg's is the one for all of Maine for some reason.

Take all the stuff of a carnival, plus everything of a farmer's market times 100, and that's Fryeberg Fair.

They have all the usual blue ribbon contests, like jams, and pies, and giant pumpkins, and fattest pig, and an art contest, and one for quilting, and embroidering, and...all that stuff.

It's where my dough boy story took place.
And the joke fudge review.
One vendor one time had crappy fudge, every other time, its actually been pretty good.

They've got all the usual fair stuff, candied apples (both hard candy, and caramel), cotton candy, fried veggies, dough boys, gyros, steak bombs, hot dogs, burgers, popcorn, funnel cake, sausage sandwiches, fried cookies and Twinkies, and...I...thiiink they had a frog legs guy one time.
I would never try that.
Bleh.
I'll strip a lobster, but no way on the frog legs.

And there's all the fair toys, like firecrackers, and freaky string, and air horns, and glowing bracelets, and balloon animal hats, and invisible dog leashes, and the cheap stuffed animals as game prizes.
And the guy with the dirty novelty t-shirts.
Nah, that was the 80's, I think the prudes long since kicked that guy out.

They're surrounded by a horse racing track, so there's horse gambling.
My dad and grandmother love that shit.
Me, not so much.

They used to have an arcade tent, and of course, my nerdy little ass wanted to play Pac-Man and then later, Street fighter and Rastan the whole time.
Now, I think that's gone.
Everyone's got games on their phones now.

I haven't gone in over a decade.
It's impossible to get Ma out of the house and endure a ride that far away, and it's a bummer to go without her.

Plus, it always picks that weekend to rain buckets.
A soggy muddy fair is the gloomiest drag you ever saw.
Or smelled.

Ah, well.
I've got my memories.
And they're good.

Cumberland Farms

Maine's answer to Circle K (more on that in an upcoming post).

At least...I always thought they were a strictly Maine thing, but I since found out they came up from New York.
And then since then, I found out they were bought out by the Brits.
So, it' not even American anymore, much less New England.

So...if Circle K does devour all the Cumberland Farms-es, at least they'd be American again.

Not that I'm particularly patriotic these days, just saying.

Anyway, the one in the picture was an empty field for all of my childhood, then during the 00's, it became Hanson's Market.
Then Hanson's sold out, and they turned it into a medical center.
Then, in the last couple of years or so, they built the Cumberland Farms in front of that to get gas and food money out of the medical patients.
Hope Hanson rakes in a cut of all of that.

Anyway, for food, they've got all the stuff you see at a Circle K.
Cold sandwiches, rotating hot dogs, cheese dogs, egg rolls, pizza, soft pretzels, whoopie pies, Slush Puppies, soda, beer, candy, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, shitty unwatchable movies on a DVD spinner-rack, grocery aisles with cereals, and paper goods, and canned stuff, and beef jerky, and all of that kind of thing.
And self-serve coffee.
And lottery tickets.
Y'know, gas station shit.

Knowing it's not ours comes as a shock.
It always felt like ours.
Like how we kind of consider Ozzy Osbourne ours (as Americans).
We (Mainers) kind of adopted it.
And then I grew up with it not knowing it was adopted.
Anyway...

Finally, all the Maine stuff I've covered before...

Moxie.