The main thing: freshly picked crab
ELLSWORTH, Maine -- Snowdrifts lingered. Wire lobster traps stood piled high in yards and on wharves. Wood smoke curled from chimneys
Even in March, though, a crowd had formed at Jordan's Snack Bar in Ellsworth. Waitstaff, wearing fleece pullovers and mufflers wound around their necks, busily took orders for crab rolls and other Down East fare.
In eastern Maine, Jordan's opening for the season stirs something in the soul. It gives folks hope that warm weather isn't too far off. After being hammered by blizzards all winter, locals hanker for simple pleasures like going for a crab roll -- freshly picked crabmeat packed in a grilled hot dog roll -- with fries and crisp, crunchy coleslaw on the side.
''When you are shopping, you hear 'Jordan's is open' or 'I think it's about time the Jordans come home,' " said Avis Harmon, 76, referring to takeout owners James and Carol Jordan, who spend part of the winter in Florida. ''We wait for them each year and cry when they close."
Now that the weather has warmed up (even in Maine), the rite of going to one's favorite seafood joint is repeated from Kittery to Calais. While the Pine Tree State is famous for lobster, many Mainers confess privately that they prefer crab. They'll tell you Maine crab -- freshly harvested, impeccably picked -- is subtler and more delicate in flavor than its fellow bug-eyed, bottom-dweller.
Nancy Harmon Jenkins, a respected food writer whose latest book is ''The Essential Mediterranean: How Regional Cooks Transform Key Ingredients into the World's Favorite Cuisines" (HarperCollins, 2003), was born and raised in Camden.
''It's got something lobster doesn't have," Jenkins said of crabmeat. ''It has a sweetness and it doesn't get stuck in your teeth."
Jenkins, 67, likes her crab roll in a toasted hamburger bun lightly buttered inside and out.
''Not too much mayo, please," she cautioned. ''I tend to favor Hellman's, but that's an old family prejudice. I also like a small amount of crunch in the crab roll -- not crunch from shells, but crunch from something like wee bits of celery or very sweet onions or even of sour pickles, but very small pieces and a very small amount."
In Maine, both Jonah and peekytoe (rock) crabs are used for making crab rolls. Pickers prefer peekytoes because their shells don't split as easily, and leg meat can be extracted intact.
A byproduct of the lobster fishery, peekytoes are harvested mostly in spring and summer. They are boiled and the meat laboriously picked out by hand in a heavily regulated cottage industry.
''You have to handle them with kid gloves compared to lobster," said Carl Wilson, a biologist at the Maine Department of Marine Resources. Little Deer Isle resident Sonia Bunt has picked crabs for 20 years.
Share your thoughts on great places to get crab rolls, lobster rolls, fried clams, and other summer fare at www.bos
''I happened to marry a fisherman," Bunt said, explaining her occupation. ''There's a lady who works with me. We just talk and talk. Usually the radio is going."
During a recent 600-mile-plus road trip from Kittery Point in the south to the tiny town of Penobscot on the Blue Hill Peninsula, it became clear that the freshness of the crabmeat, the amount of mayonnaise used, and whether the bun was grilled and buttered were critical factors in this unscientific and subjective sampling of crab rolls at a dozen takeout places.
See ''If You Go" for five of our favorites.
Letitia Baldwin is style editor at the Bangor Daily News. 