Thanksgiving isn't always about turkey for me. I only have turkey maybe once every few years. This year I had Maine lobster. I had to drive over to Om Seafood Market in Southeast Portland to pick up the live lobsters today, but it was so worth it!
Our family traveled to Maine every summer for several generations, so Lobster has a special place in my heart. I think about it when I'm missing Mom, who lives in Maine. So, this year's theme was Northeast by Northwest.
Of course we have several hilarious lobster stories, but none as funny as a debate among friends a few years ago. How long should you cook a lobster? I felt 10 to 12 minutes would be perfect for a 1 & 1/2 point lobster, partly because I googled the information and got a good idea about the cooking time.
A couple of our friends felt it should be more than 20 minutes, and they were getting a little heated about the whole thing. So, I resolved to cook most of the lobsters for 12 minutes, leaving the other two for the friends to pull when they were happy about how long they had cooked-- more than 20 minutes!! Oy vey. I had a bad feeling about what would happen next.
Sure enough, as we all sat around the dinner table enjoying our lobsters, our friends seemed dismayed. Their lobsters were very chewy, like rubber. Maybe they should've listened. Cooking lobster is not difficult, but it's still serious business! Needless to say, I cooked my twin 1 & 1/2 pounders for 12 minutes today. They were perfect. I saved the shells and bodies to make stock.
My Thanksgiving Day feast seemed untraditional to some folks, but was it really? Historical accounts suggest lobster was present at the first Thanksgiving celebration in New England, so maybe having lobster was really a return to our roots. I liked doing something different, especially since it was actually part of our American heritage.
