How to Eat Lobster Like a Native Mainer

You can take the girl out of Maine, but you can’t take Maine out of the girl.

Photo by David Todd Mcarty, via Unsplash

Every August, my father’s family re-indoctrinates this Northern Virginia girl into Vacationland culture. Legend has it, I ate my first full lobster at age 3.

I didn’t appreciate the strangeness of our annual lobster feast until I met my husband. His Louisiana family taught him the difference between gumbo and étouffée, but taking apart and eating a crustacean larger than his head was a foreign concept. If you’re dating a Mainer, or were invited to a Mainer’s family lake house for lobster dinner, here are some tips and tricks to get you on your way to eating lobster like you you’ve been repping The Red Sox and L.L. Bean since the day you were born.

First, let’s get some facts out of the way:

What is Maine lobster?

Lobsters of various sizes are found in oceans all over the world. The big, clawed lobsters that we call “Maine lobster” are also known as and Canada lobster. They can be found off the coasts of Northeastern Canada and as far south as North Carolina. Although, there are rarely enough of them to fish south of Massachusetts. Prior to the mid-19th century, lobster was poor people…