As someone who has lived in New England her entire life and comes from a family in which knowing how to crack open a lobster is an essential life skill, I thought I’d had lobster in all of its forms. I’ve had it boiled, baked, and bisqued. I’ve eaten it tempura-fried on a stick, rolled into savory doughnuts, and battered into something resembling a corndog. I’ve bought it straight from the dock and picked which would meet its doom right from a tank at a restaurant. I even tried lobster with hot blueberries in a citrus-butter sauce—and let me tell you, it wasvery好的。
但是龙虾冰淇淋？那似乎是不对的。
At least that’s what I thought when I walked intoBen＆Bill的巧克力商场in Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard 15 years ago and I saw it right there on the board with all the normal flavors like Coffee Heath Bar and Peppermint Stick. Obviously, I had to try it. I remember thinking that the tiny bite I had on the sample spoon wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But I was not tempted to try any more.
According to the Ben & Bill’swebsite, lobster ice cream was invented at the store’s first location in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1988 as proof that Ben and Bill really did make all of their ice cream in-house. There’s also a rumor that it came from a dare: someone observed that they had every flavor but lobster, and one of the owners responded, “Come back tomorrow.” Now it’s a staple at all three Ben & Bill’s shops (the third is on Cape Cod). The Bar Harbor location alone goes through more than 100 gallons a year.
So in the interest of good journalism and because I can never turn down an opportunity to try a weird concoction, I got in the car to spend a summer afternoon on Cape Cod revisiting the combination of two foods that I really love but that I am extremely wary of eating at the same time.
马萨诸塞州法尔茅斯（Falmouth）是当您在脑海中拍摄鳕鱼角时，您会想象的一切。这是一个完美的沿海小镇，有一条大街上到处都是商店，卖礼服，上面有贝壳，还有带有航海名称的餐馆。现在，由于大流行，情况有些不同。马萨诸塞州是冠状病毒数字较低的州之一，因为它严格戴着面具戴口罩和社交距离。截至8月1日，除其他地方以外的任何地方，任何人都必须隔离14天，或者显示出阴性Covid-19测试的证明，每天罚款500美元。在前门Ben＆Bill's, there’s a sign announcing that guests are limited to seven at a time and asking people to look inside and count before entering. It’s better, the sign adds, to send one person per group inside to order.
The食谱for lobster ice cream is simple: take two gallons of truly excellent butter-flavored ice cream, mix in 1.5 pounds of cooked lobster meat bought from local fishermen, and leave to freeze until totally set. The result is ice cream that has pretty substantial chunks of red knuckle and claw meat, easily visible when you’re handed your order.
“人们真的吃了吗？”我问柜台后面的女孩，当时她用华夫饼干烤了我的大龙虾冰淇淋。
“Um…somepeople do,” she replied. She clearly wasn’t one of them.
“Do they like it?”
“Eh… yeah. Some people.”
I took my cone outside to a little park and snapped as many pictures as I could before the ice cream started to melt in the 90-degree summer sun. And then I took a bite.
老实说，我不讨厌它。首先，您会得到令人难以置信的丰富，黄油冰淇淋的味道。然后是龙虾。可以肯定的是，这仍然是棘手的，但仍然是龙虾。对我来说，这总是一件好事（显然，即使在冰淇淋中）。我认为龙虾冰淇淋会吸引那些没有爱吃甜食的人，因为海鲜的咸味。但是，龙虾很新鲜，天然很甜，并且是普通的含糖冰淇淋的基础。结果有点像冷冻的龙虾浓汤，但是如果您在餐厅里得到了浓汤，您会对其中有多少龙虾感到满意。（有时候，众所周知，如果您已经拥有的，龙虾浓汤的龙虾部分几乎是不存在的。）如果您已经不喜欢冰淇淋，那么您几乎没有机会喜欢龙虾冰淇淋。
Still, now that I’ve had it again, I’ve decided it’s mostly for dads who want to gross out their kids. According to Ben & Bill’s, hundreds of people sample lobster ice cream every day, and it’s popular as a take-home souvenir of a New England vacation. Hard numbers aren’t easy to come by, but缅因州在东方magazine reportedthat the company made 410 gallons of it in 2016.
Even though I didn’t hate that ice cream, I definitely didn’t like it enough to finish it. I did, however, go sit by the water that evening and eat a beautifully fresh seafood dinner. It’s New England in the summer, after all. If you didn’t have fish right off the boat, you didn’t summer in New England at all.