Lobster Sandwich

Even though I live on the Eats Coast, and lobsters are fished out of water I can see, I don't eat a lot of lobster. A few times a year though, I have a lobster sandwich craving.

My mother always ate lobster sandwiches, and gradually, I was willing to try it and loved it. Now I order them at various family restaurants, diners and shacks along the highway, comparing each of them. One of my local favourites is served by Billy's Seafood, two blocks away. They serve it with shredded lettuce on white gourmet hotdog buns with Ceaser salad or fries. A little further down the road is Ossie's, only open in the summer. It's in the middle of nowhere and people come from all over to order their fried food and eat it in their cars and trucks. Their hotdog bun lobster sandwich come in those little white cardboard holders.

My all time favourite was in a family restaurant in Lunenburg. I had been travelling for work and had a Sunday to myself. I drove the forty minutes to amble around the historic town for the afternoon. Most shops were closed (the Tim Horton's was the busiest part of town), but it was a beautiful crisp fall day, the museum was open and I was happy to be free. One of the open restaurants was almost empty, had a motherly waitress and a classic family menu. I ordered the lobster sandwich and was given the option of white or whole wheat bread. The sandwich came with whole wheat house made sandwich bread, layered with lettuce, with a baked potato, on a large dinner plate.

This was the way lobster sandwiches had been eaten for ages in this area- just another humble sandwich filling. There are many stories in this area of people who were too poor to take anything other than a lobster sandwich to school for lunch. And now it feels like the most natural way to me.