A recent trip to the east coast to visit a grandson gave me a chance to partake and enjoy Maine seafood, particularly the bountiful supply of lobster. Now coming from the Bayou State with the best seafood in the nation, my standards are high. And with all due respect to the fine folks in Maine, I was disappointed.
My first food stop was for a lobster roll at one of the seafood joints that are on every corner. Now a lobster roll is simply a hotdog bun filled with lobster meat with a little mayonnaise on top. Sure, the lobster meat was tasty, but the roll needed spicing up a bit. So like any other hungry Louisianan would do, I asked for some Tabasco sauce. “Don’t have any,” I was told. I received the same response at several other seafood stops.
The lesson here is that our Yankee friends don’t know how to spice up their seafood. It is often rather bland. Seafood and hot sauce go hand in hand down here where I live. And Tabasco is the gold standard when it comes to condiments. I was in northern Thailand a few years ago eating lunch at an outdoor cafe with dirt floors along the Cambodian border, and when my rice dish was served, it included the Tabasco sauce. But I couldn’t find it in Maine.
