Mainers rally with knife, fork to aid struggling lobstermen

Barry Wade unloaded 35 pounds of chix lobsters at Hannaford Supermarket in Wells, Maine,

CUNDYS HARBOR, Maine - Usually, it would take no added incentive to sell lobster rolls at cost.

But when a cafe up the coast advertised topless waitresses as a lure this fall, the plight of the reeling local lobster industry was cast in stark, naked focus.

The topless tease was a joke, but the Brass Compass Cafe in Rockland was dead serious in its effort to push more lobsters on a state that seems to be crawling with them.

From the state Capitol to the grass roots, Mainers are being asked to help out the suffering industry by eating more lobster - during the week, as a family, and as a dietary staple that now is sometimes as inexpensive as bologna.

They are even being encouraged to incorporate the clawed crustacean into Christmas dinner.

"I've eaten more lobster; my friends are serving more lobster," said state Representative Leila Percy of Popham Beach, who is House chairwoman of the Marine Resources Committee. "Here we are at the beginning of winter, and people are having a lobster stew!"

Since October, when the credit crisis paralyzed the lobster market, the off-boat price has plummeted close to $2 a pound at some wharves. And there is no relief in sight for lobstermen who are hurting up and down the state's fabled, rocky coast.

But as lobstermen struggle to survive, neighbors are coming to the rescue in unprecedented, innovative ways that aim to put a lobster in as many pots as possible.

In Boothbay Harbor last month, 7,000 lobsters were sold one Saturday at $5 apiece in the high school parking lot. In Stonington, 5,000 pounds of lobster found buyers at a special event at $3.50 a pound. And in Georgetown, 3,400 lobsters were sold to residents and bargain-hunters at $4 a pound.

Brian Ross, a Bangor chef who owns a catering business, has posted lobster recipes on a nonprofit website, www.lobstercelebrations.com, that is designed to boost the industry. He is working on Christmas concoctions, including latkes filled with potato and lobster, as well as mushrooms stuffed with lobster.

"It's humanitarian to say we're doing it to help the lobstermen," Ross said. "But you know what? Lobster tastes good, too. It's very easy to be a big-hearted individual under those circumstances."

Maine is the country's lobster capital, but that doesn't mean that Mainers eat more than anybody else. Until recently, lobster has been costly here, too. And the delicacy generally has been reserved for special occasions and summertime visitors.

"I was always under the impression that your average family here had one or two messes of lobster a year," said Robert Watson, a laconic, fifth-generation native of Cundys Harbor.

In Bath, a shipbuilding city on the Kennebec River, hotel receptionist Andrew Swanton said he finds that lobster can be more trouble than it's worth.

"You get goo everywhere," said Swanton, 25.

Heading into Thanksgiving, however, a media push spurred Mainers to the market. Hannaford Supermarkets, which operates 51 stores in Maine and 167 chainwide, sold more lobsters in November than all but one other month this year, said Michael Norton, a company spokesman.

At Hannaford, that volume is unprecedented for what usually is a poor month for lobster, Norton added. Indeed, the chain's lobster sales in November were three times greater than the same month last year.

"Most Mainers don't have it as a regular meal," said Cary Weston, a Bangor marketing consultant who helped start the website with Ross's recipes. "It's considered a meal of summertime celebration, family reunions, that kind of thing. It's a meal that Mainers fix because they have out-of-state guests who think that's what you're supposed to do."

Gary Hawkes, who leaves his wharf at Cundys Harbor to haul lobster traps, does not wax rapturous when he talks about the culinary attributes of Homarus americanus.

"I like lobster, and every once in a while I get a hankering for crabmeat," Hawkes said. "But I'm a red-meat man, I guess you might say. I'd be better off eating lobster, to tell you the truth. It's better for you."

That's a clarion call that Heidi Stevens is sounding in Rockland, where she owns a jewelry store. One morning, when she woke with a start at 2 a.m., Stevens decided to pump her own stimulus into the lobster industry.

That morning, she bought 100 lobsters, raffled off 40 at her store, and gave away the remaining 60 on the street, some to complete strangers she tapped on the shoulder.

"When we closed at 4 o'clock, I sat down and bawled," Stevens said of lobstermen. "These are the people who keep my lights on. They come into the store for weddings, when their children are born, and for anniversaries."

That kind of impromptu, ad hoc behavior is sprouting all along the coast, said Marianne LaCroix, marketing director for the Maine Lobster Council.

"Everybody feels a little bit of ownership in this," LaCroix said. "A lot of people know a lobsterman, and a lot of people are saying they just want to help."

The crash in the lobster market happened with startling speed. When Iceland's largest bank collapsed, Canadian processors lost access to credit, and Maine lobstermen lost a major buyer for their October product.

"In the space of an hour, I went from thinking everything was wonderful to not hauling the next day," said Paul Hickey, 51, a South Harpswell lobsterman.

Now, to supplement his income, Hickey brings a 90-pound crate of live lobsters to a Brunswick mall on Fridays, where he sets up a cooler outside a bakery owned by a friend. Between noon and 4 p.m., Hickey sells lobsters for $4 a pound.

"It's not going to make much difference in my finances, but it raises awareness," he said. "We can all sit at home and cry in our soup about low prices, or we can make an attempt to do something. Plus, it makes me feel better."