The Maine Lobster Council claims on their website that, “The World’s Finest Lobster Comes from Maine”. In August of 2006 they started a program of affixing sticky labels (don’t get me started on sticky labels) identifying Maine lobsters which were destined for out-of-state delivery as “Certified Maine lobster”. There was quite a backlash. It didn’t help that the then MLC executive director, Kristin Millar said,

“Make sure your lobster is from Maine, don’t buy an impostor lobster.”

from ROBERT F. BUKATY/The Associated Press

This example of uncharacteristic Maine arrogance prompted an editorial in the Boston Globe by Brian Mcgrory on 18 Aug, 2006 titled, “Tasty Testing”, in which he ruthlessly and rightfully ridiculed the remark. Mr. Mcgrory even went so far as to do his own double blind study involving two groups of lobsters, one from Maine and the other from Massachusetts, and some Boston area chefs. (This is the kind of research I like.) The chefs chose the Massachusetts lobster as often as the Maine lobster, basically a tie. The conclusion was that Massachusetts lobster was a little sweeter, Maine saltier and with a stronger flavor. Mcgrory sums it up with,

So in a scientific study, it comes out a tie, reason enough to ignore Maine’s obnoxious stunt.

Well, I would much prefer Maine to not have a reputation for obnoxious people than have a faux better lobster. After all, there is no state line on the sea floor which lobsters cross at their peril, becoming instantly less flavorful. The whole idea is pretty silly.

To be fair I went to the MLC website to see if they backed up their claim. The closest they get to it is to state that the American lobster, Homarus americanus, which they have unilaterally renamed the “Authentic Maine Lobster”, is better because all the rest “are merely wannabes” (like the Caribbean spiny lobster), “have no claws and thus no delectable claw meat.” No claims about how our waters are cleaner or colder. In fact, since the Massachusetts lobster is also Homarus americanus, it is therefore, “Authentic Maine Lobster”, so using our powers of logic, those lobsters caught by Massachusetts are really OUR lobsters who have strayed over two state lines.

Now that I have thrashed the Maine MLC, let’s revisit the subject without obnoxious marketing slogans or annoying food stickers. Is Maine lobster better? My answer is a qualified yes, for this simple reason: Our sustainability. Maine is on track to obtain approval from the England-based Marine Stewardship Council (M.S.C.) to be certified as sustainable. This process is long and expensive and is almost over, with certification expected in 2011. We must be doing something right. I go into the reasons here. Maine Lobster fishers are plentiful and inefficient. This is a good thing; many folks are employed and the wealth of the industry is more or less equitably distributed. There are very few poverty-line sweat-shop lobster jobs. The inefficiency means that it takes more jobs to bring lobster to your table than it would if giant factory ships dragged massive baskets across the sea floor. And above all, the resource is respected and well managed. Even the ropes used on traps have been recently replaced at great cost to prevent entanglement with right whales. So you can feel good about eating Maine lobster. I’m not claiming Massachusetts or New Brunswick lobster tastes inferior in any way, just that Maine lobster has a lot going for it. Without stickers.

For a short video about sustainability in the Maine lobster industry click here.

I admit, Maine can be a creepy place sometimes. First there’s the long history…you can’t have ghosts unless you have dead people…the woods are thick and dark and the cemeteries are old, overgrown and hardly a place to lighten your mood. Fog shrouds our coastline at times. Then there’s the plethora of books in the “Ghosts of New England” category. No doubt written in long dark winter nights or perhaps told around an eighteenth century fireplace, these stories are part of the Maine experience. Then there’s Stephen King up in Bangor. Pet Semetary anyone? Rent the movie for a close-up of our area. Here’s a page listing “haunted” places around Bar Harbor.

Nowadays we have a new breed of ghost stories, the pseudoscientific variety. Let me say right now that I am an extreme skeptic; I don’t tolerate any mumbo-jumbo, so I report on this subject while holding my nose. I’m referring to those cable TV shows which feature investigations into the paranormal using video cameras showing green-tinted images and mysterious gizmos which record some sort of aura or electromagnetic field. All of these devices yield results which are supposed to provide “evidence” of some sort. I can’t claim I have ever sat through one of these stupid shows because I know the conclusions will always be ambiguous–the goal is to get the viewer to believe some place is haunted without coming out and saying it.

It turns out that these shows appeared about the same time as wannabe versions in Maine. Whether one caused the other I can’t say. The two I found are Maine Ghost Hunters (don’t expect me to provide a link) and Maine Ghost Hunter’s Society. Folks, I gotta tell ya, these groups are an embarrassment to me. And ME. Here’s two samples of writing in their discussion forum:

Though i never had any personal experiance with Ghots i must say that i had many different experiances or i should say unexplained and personal experiances with the Paranormal. It can be very comforting to know that we are not just imagening.

Hello. my name is *****. i am engaged and have one child. i believe i have always had a natural abbil. to sensens thing, good or bad.

Need I say more? OK, how about this: Go ahead and look at their murky photos and listen to their distorted audio (which they call EVP-electronic voice phenomenon) for a thrill. Then download this podcast from the wonderful Point of Inquiry website. The interview is with Ben Radford, a real paranormal investigator using real science. You will have to either listen to or skip ahead of an opening editorial to get to the interview.

At livescience.com, Ben writes many articles about pseudoscience, the one about ghost hunters is here.

Critical thinking is not a natural human trait. Let’s not lose it! The overwhelming majority of Mainers still have it!

The lobster supply off our Bar Harbor shores has been growing over the past several decades, but the economics of Maine’s lobster industry will always result in a hefty price for lobster. I reported in an earlier post that a typical price for the picked meat was around $35.oo per pound in 2010.  I recently paid $30 per pound for frozen local claw meat from Hannaford supermarket in Ellsworth. Lobster fishers spend lots of time and diesel fuel in pursuit of their quarry. They also contend with streaks of low yields followed by booms. Finally, they have to return to the sea up to 80% of the lobster in their traps because of conservations measures which I discussed here. This all adds up to a price beyond the daily budget for family meals. So Maine lobster is an infrequent treat, but is it a healthy food? And what about the ethics of cooking lobster?

The Secret Life of Lobsters by Trevor Corson is a book which answers many questions about lobsters in an engaging semi-fictional way, and has an appendix devoted to lobster as a food called “How to cook a lobster”. In it he dispels the myth that lobster is as rich a food as the price may suggest. The problems occur when you dip the meat in butter. By itself, lobster meat is more healthful than beef or even chicken breasts, containing twenty and thirteen times less fat respectively. Vitamins are plentiful: A, B12 and E; calcium, phosphorus and zinc and plenty of omega-3 fatty acids. Just avoid the tomalley (the liver, or “green stuff”) and lobster is a darn near perfect protein source, unless you need to limit sodium. The tomalley is actually a benefit, because it makes the lobster meat free from red tide or other environmental toxins. Consider a pasta sauce with lobster to avoid unhealthy fat.

So what about the humane treatment question? How humane can it be to plunge an animal into boiling water? Again according to Corson, scientists make arguments both ways as to whether lobsters feel pain. One argument against is that lobsters and other invertebrates do not “act pained” when losing a limb or inflicted with other injuries. The actions of a lobster upon being dropped into boiling water is standard escape response. Corson goes on to say that scientists have found little evidence that the lobster’s nervous system is more sophisticated than that of an ant, housefly or mosquito. He concludes by saying that the typical lobster will cease activity after 60 to 90 seconds of being dropped into the pot, and that this can be shortened to twenty seconds by first chilling the lobster to dormancy in the freezer for a few minutes.

Assuming you are now ready to plan your lobster dinner, there is one more detail you should know. Lobsters develop toxins within several hours of death, so make sure yours are still alive before you cook them. If you want a quicker death, you can employ Julia Child’s trick and dispatch them with a knife plunged behind the head. That’s what has to happen if you broil or grill them. If you’re still too squeamish, find a recipe which calls for cooked meat and you can buy it pre-picked for about $35.00 per pound. And if you want the real Maine lobster experience, stay with us and use the 5 gallon pot to cook them in. We are now accepting reservations for 2011.

On Monday, December 6, downeast Maine awoke to a thick blanket of snow, the first this year. The snow is wet and the ground underneath is muddy, making it difficult to plow. This means at SeaCat’s Rest a significant amount of dirt will end up on the neighbor’s lawn which will have to be raked away in spring. We got along without plowing so far (Tuesday). The trick is  to charge down the road (our shared driveway is 1/4 mile long) until the drifted snow and upward slope begin to slow you down. Either you make it to the end, where the town plows have left a nice solid ridge of snow, and hope you don’t have to stop for traffic before busting through, or stop and back up to try again. Backing down the driveway in the tracks you made for 1/4 mile is not easy. Sometimes you get way off and end up stuck. The total whiteness of what you see in your rear view mirror is surreal after an autumn of browns and grays. (Technically, it is still autumn).

The snow brings another kind of change. There’s an undefinable shift in your perception of the outdoor world. It’s cleaner and dryer. The air is less penetrating and chilling. It’s brighter and prettier. When the sun emerges it’s almost too bright. You can fall down and it doesn’t hurt; your car can smash into heaps of snow without damage. It’s kind of fun. Also, there is a new found feeling of affection for your home as a warm, dry burrow. Cabin fever comes later.

The drifts mean getting plowed twice for one snowfall

Meanwhile, the ocean hasn’t heard the news. It is still doing its ocean thing. Rough, calm, tides, birds. It will have to be a very cold and calm day in mid to late January before the salty water ices over, and the cold would have to continue for days and weeks for any thickness to develop. This is rare, happening only about once every 7 years or so. So while Maine’s interior is solidly snowy, our coast can flip to rain as soon as the weather comes from the ocean. Sometimes the line between rain and snow is at our mailbox at the end of the driveway. But once the ice thickens on the water, we might as well be in Minnesota. The temps can go sub-zero in a big hurry, dashing gardener’s dreams of a mild temperate climate. It is this rapid and sudden drop which kills grapevines.

Last winter we had snow until January, and then nothing. I know this by looking at our plowing bills. It seems as soon as we’re in the snow mode, it’s over. Not the gray skies or cold rain or icy roads, just the snow. Maybe this year will be different.

Why do people think of lobster when they think of the State of Maine? Our Atlantic or American lobster, Homarus americanus, ranges as far south as North Carolina, but the greatest abundance is in the cold waters of Maine and Atlantic Canada. In Maine, our 2009 harvest was 78 million pounds, valued at $228.6 million. Second in the U. S. was Massachusetts with 11.6 million pounds. Maine and Massachusetts account together for 92% of the lobster landings in the U.S.A. and of that, Maine’s share is 80%.

People watching the Discovery Channel’s Lobstermen or the earlier Lobster Wars may have been surprised to find an occupation similar to Alaska’s severe Deadliest Catch. But this type of fishing is not typical. Most lobster landings are closer to shore and from much smaller boats in the summer months. These familiar boats are what visitors see when they visit Maine. The TV show would probably have been a dismal failure without rough weather and boats big enough and out at sea long enough to host gossip and bitter quarrels.

Why do lobster landings keep going up in Maine? We keep hearing about overfishing and crashing stocks but lobsters continue to thrive…for now.

Rare colorful lobster caught in Maine

There are a few reasons why our lobster fishery is bucking the trend. First, lobsters are bottom feeders. They are able to thrive on a varied diet–whatever falls to the bottom or lives there. Crabs, starfish, dead fish. For a while, cowhide was being sold as a bait for traps! Secondly, the lobster’s main predator, cod has been overfished and essentially removed as a threat especially in shallow waters. Third, the growth of the urchin fishery has taken the pressure off the urchin’s food, kelp. It is thought that kelp beds are great nurseries for larval lobsters. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the fishers and their equipment and methods preserve the resource better than just about all other fisheries. Think about it: The lobster is only taken when 1) it enters the trap looking for food, 2) it fails to figure out how to get out 3) the trap is hauled before a biodegradable link allows an escape hatch to open, 4) the lobster is between a certain size range, and 5) not a “v” notched or egg bearing female. These conservative measures make it almost impossible to overfish and return by some estimates, over 80% of trapped lobsters to the sea.  Compare this to massive trawlers pulling miles of nets or draggers pulling up everything from the bottom. Our lobster fishers deserve much credit for this inspired management!

How did lobster fishing  start? Before the arrival of Europeans, the Native Americans used the plentiful lobster as fertilizer and bait. The first lobster landing was reported in 1605 by James Rosier, a member of  Captain George Weymouth’s crew. Still, in colonial times lobster was considered “poverty food”, served to prisoners and indentured servants. In Massachusetts, servants even rebelled, demanding that they not be forced to eat lobster more than three times per week! After 1840, when canning became common, the lobster industry finally took off. At that time it was common to use over 5 pound lobsters, discarding anything under 2 pounds as not worth the effort. Nowadays in Maine, any lobster over 5 inches on the body shell (carapace) or about 4-1/2 lbs must be returned to the water.

Captain John Nicolai

How can I experience Maine lobstering? The first and most important thing to know is that it is extremely illegal to tamper with traps or gear in the water! Even an abandoned trap on shore is off limits. The way to experience the Maine lobster is first, have one for dinner. You may approach a lobster fisher at a public pier and he or she may be glad to sell you one or more, or visit one of our plentiful pounds. Secondly, visit the Maine Lobster Museum at the Mount Desert Oceanarium, and the nearby lobster hatchery. Finally, take a trip out on the water with a working lobster fisherman, Captain John Nicolai aboard his Lulu, setting off from Bar Harbor.

When I was in college, way back in the ’70s we had an energy crisis. The Saudis were mad at us and embargoed oil shipments to the United States. President Carter appeared in a sweater and told us to turn down our thermostats and lowered the speed limit to 55 mph. This was a fun time for alternative energy; we took classes about rammed-earth houses, built solar heaters and considered  plans for very early hybrid-electric car retrofits from Mother Earth News. We all burned wood. Then Ronald Reagan came along on his horse and it was morning in America again, which somehow meant we could all go back to using lots of oil.

Now it’s a topsy-turvy replay of the 70′s energy crisis. We have no lines at the gas pump, but super-deep offshore wells mean environmental cataclysm is an ever-present threat. CO2 concentration  in the atmosphere has reached 388 parts per million while in 1976 it was 335. Glaciers are melting everywhere and here on the shore of Maine we are bracing for noticeable sea level change, weird weather, strong storms and acidified sea water. Our gas money is coming back at us in shoe bombs.

I like to think that human beings are capable of making intelligent and abrupt changes in their behavior. After all, we made it this far. Here in Maine there is a big controversy about “industrial wind power” which is a strange new phrase combining something positive (wind power) with something sinister (industrial).

Glace Bay, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

Opponents like to use another bad word, “corporate” to indicate that wind power in Maine has now morphed into what we came to Maine to escape. The leader of this belief system, Jonathan Carter, has even tried to prove that the energy contributions from wind turbines actually result in MORE greenhouse gasses, since their contribution is not constant. This is nonsense.

Most of what I hear about this so-called controversy leaves me speechless. What is the alternative? Coal? Nuclear? As the Beatles said, “We’d all like to see the plan.” We need to get those parts per million down now. We can’t dither around by arguing about whether climate change is real, it is. Wind is part of the solution. Maine needs wind power, tidal power, photovoltaics and smart use. We need to drive electric cars powered by green power. Stop whining.

Few people are going to come to Bar Harbor or Lamoine, Maine based on our tax rate on lodgings or rental cars, but high taxes could be nasty surprise if they go elsewhere. Lodging tax is popular with state legislatures because it is not paid by the voting citizens of the state. It is typically two or even three times the sales tax rate, or in the case of New Hampshire, an infinite multiple, since NH has no sales tax.

Beware the Lodgings Tax Surprise

Complicating things is the way lodgings tax is divided in some places between state and local governments. Massachusetts has a reasonable 5.7% state tax, but local government adds another 4% for a total of 9.7%. New York State’s 4% has another 9.75% added for a total of a whopping 13.75%. How about Canada? The sales tax in Nova Scotia is 13% (called HST) and lodgings add another 2% for a total of 15%. New Brunswick charges 13% and Quebec’s rate will increase to 14% on January 1, 2011.

I had to dig hard for these numbers, it seems that these taxes are somewhat cloaked in secrecy. Just try to price out a hotel room in New York and you may just get a “plus tax” quote. In fact, the rates quoted above may be wrong, (they are from the Brookings Institution) but my guess is if anything they may be higher. For example, if you first figure a 5% tax and then add another 4%, it does not add up to 9% if you add the 4% onto the adjusted amount:

$100+5%= $105

$105+4%=$109.20. $109.20/$100=9.2%, not 9%!

Maine’s lodgings tax is 7%. That’s all. We value our tourist industry so we don’t try to trick you into a double digit surprise. Our regular sales tax is a reasonable 5% and although our state gasoline tax is a hefty 31 cents per gallon, a recent trip to Michigan left me with the impression that Maine gasoline is among the cheapest in New England. Tourism is a big part of the Maine economy, we need you! We want you to come back.

Do yourself a favor and look at how Maine and our Acadia area compare to other places for value before making your vacation decisions for next year. We have the most free activities, free shuttle bus on the island, inexpensive restaurants, our own affordable lodgings and of course, the lowest tax.

Did I mention the beauty?

from http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Bizarre_Foods

Fans of the Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods show have watched host Andrew Zimmern eat everything from pig brains in Spain to tree worms in the Philippines. When I heard he was doing a show in Maine my first question was, “What do we eat that’s so bizarre? What could possibly compare to roasted caterpillar or fermented seal blubber?”

Also from the travel channel website

To answer this question, Andrew met up with his dad Bob Zimmern, who happens to live in Portland, Maine’s largest city. The two head out to Fore Street for lunch where chef Sam Hayward presented his signature dishes, monkfish livers and roasted sardines. Not a bad start. In a twist on the usual parent-child exchange, Andrew scarfs down parts of the fish (the heads, of course) his dad refuses to eat. Andrew makes an observation that Maine restaurants are especially close to their food sources, and like to feature what’s local.

At the end of the show Andrew returns to Portland and finds local chefs who prepared junebugs three different ways at the Bizarre Foods Deathmatch Cookoff. He must have hit the season just right. He also visited a sushi restaurant I hadn’t heard of called Food Factory Miyake on Spring Street (our usual is Benkay on India Street). Here he tried the ultimate bizarre food, sea cucumber. I’ve seen these limp “sea pickles” washed up on our shore and I will state here and now, I refuse to eat anything that routinely expels its internal organs. Good job Andrew!

In between, the Bizarre Foods crew head out to Isle Au Haut where Andrew met up with The Perfect Storm author Linda Greenlaw. Linda took him lobster fishing and treated him to a full-blown clam bake with lobster, corn, clams, the works. Not bizarre at all, just great!

also from the travel channel website

The bizarre part happened at Pretty Marsh, where Andrew is treated to beaver chili cooked by Kate Krukowski. Leave it to Andrew to come to Maine to eat a large rodent! Kate lives in Pretty Marsh on Mount Desert Island and is the author of Black Fly Stew: Wild Maine Recipes. I have to get this book. I hope it’s not all about sea cucumbers.

Kate and Andrew Zimmern from http://www.blackflystew.com

You are ready to pop right up and begin the house search, Right? Slooooow down. We made mistakes. You should know about them. Maine is a great place to live. The people are helpful and respectful, crime is practically non-existent, you can get what you need and prices are not outrageous. Sure, winters are long and social options can be few, but you knew that, right? Below I have assembled a list of things to be mindful of.

I’m assuming you know where you will be working. If not, I hope you have a nice bankroll or a free place to stay until you figure that out. If you have not yet settled on a location, start out here. The counties of Maine are rated for their health rankings. Here in Hancock County where Acadia National Park is located, we’re #2 in the state. Next door is Washington County, #15. Go figure. This site is rich with information and rates things like high school graduation, smoking, obesity, vehicular death and so on.

Schools are an obvious concern. Even if you don’t have kids, buying into a community with a poor school means your home may not sell easily. Around here, Mount Desert has the best school, and the home prices reflect it. Bar Harbor is #2. I’m stopping there lest I get into trouble. Mount Desert Island (not to be confused with the town of Mount Desert, which is on Mount Desert Island) is the most expensive place overall to live in the county. Here in Lamoine, we always say our house would be twice the worth if we moved it onto the island, a mile away. So talk to parents with kids in school, that’s the best way to get the lowdown on school quality. Be ready for lots of details, like whether kids have to go to one high school or if they have a choice. Finally, don’t think that small is better. Having a one-class class (all 6th graders in one room) means that your child will never escape the difficult characters in her elementary school.  Diversity is good. Sometimes so are bigger schools.

Rumford paper mill

Don’t buy a house downwind from a paper mill, incinerator or toxic waste dump until you inform yourself about the risks. There are mills in Old Town and Bucksport, and there is an incinerator in Orrington. A list of contaminated sites in Hancock County can be seen here. Overall, Maine is not bad in this regard, although some complain bitterly about aerial spraying of blueberry fields. Perhaps the worst polluter is us, in the form of ozone and smog from cars which blow up the east coast in the summertime.

Take a local map and put pins in everyplace you are likely to go. Grocery stores, work, doctor’s office, lumber yard, school, favorite restaurant, etc. Keep this map in mind as you start to consider places to live. When you find a property, find out how long it’s been on the market. Houses in Maine are hard to sell in certain areas. When we first settled in Belfast, we noticed that putting out a for sale sign was an annual event staged for tourists. People were asking prices unjustified by the jobs likely to be found there. Things are better now, but there are places where you may be tempted by a big sprawling house and barn; just a little too far from all the pins in your map.

I had a boss once who told me (after I bought a sprawling house and barn in the wrong area) that you should not buy a house in Maine unless it was either 1) waterfront or 2) view. He was right. Of course, there are other factors which may substitute for waterfront or view, but if you’re not careful you will end up with a house you can’t sell for more than you bought it for, as happened to us and our Belfast house. Those first few years in Maine were instructive. We saw more houses burned down (for practice by the fire department) than built. Houses were crumbling into the ground. That would not happen on MDI or Lamoine for the most part, but make sure you remember my boss’s warning.

Culturally, Maine life varies widely. Near the coast, big cities and universities there are theater, music, reading groups, good libraries and educated neighbors. In other places snowmobiles, ATVs and hunting prevail.  You may want to read The Beans of Egypt, Maine by Carolyn Chute. This is recommended for anyone moving to Maine. There are really two Maines. The book is an extreme version of the “other” Maine, but there is a real dichotomy. You may want to figure out where you fit in this continuum before committing to a particular area. The best places are where people embrace both cultures, like Lamoine.

Our resident playwright and theatrical director Carol Korty is now putting the finishing touches on our  talented acting company, Lamoine Community Arts (LCA) and their production of Neil Simon’s  farce Rumors.  Carol has graced us with her talent for many seasons and we marvel at how we became the chosen spot on the map for her “retirement”.

Rumors is a very funny play about what happens when upper class New York suburbanites attend an anniversary party in which nothing seems right and everything goes wrong. Mystery gunshots, missing persons, crashed BMWs,  and domestic squabbles give rise to a full spectrum of rumors and lies, all designed to protect and prop up an over-privileged and under-worked  group of “friends”. Watching their attempt to evolve false explanations and how they crumble is the fun of it all, and the ending is the twist which gives an added zing. So impressive was this ending that, I completely missed my cue to dim the lights in rehearsal. I hope to do better on Friday, October 29, when the first performance happens at 7 PM. Three other performances are scheduled for 7 PM on Saturday, October 30 and Saturday, November 6 with a final Matinee on Sunday, November 7th at 3 PM.Here in rural coastal Maine it is sometimes difficult to find cultural activities we may have had access to in large cities, especially in the cooler months. The solution for most of us is to create our own. In Lamoine we all try to help when people care enough to put a production together; by volunteering for food, set construction, advertising and of course, showing up to see the play. So get on over to Lamoine Corner (where Rt 184 makes a sharp turn east) and get ready for some laughs. The play is free but donations are accepted.