My Favorite Meal
My mom’s favorite meal is lobster. She has told me stories about her parents cooking meatloaf with stale cheerios and my Memere’s infamous mulligan stew. I have never tasted this, but according to my mom, I should be thankful for this fact. She explained that once in awhile her parents would cook lobster on the weekends just for themselves. While her other siblings may have been grateful that they were getting a break from the typical meals to have mac and cheese, my mom would sit with her parents and ask for bites off their plates. She could not get enough of it. In college, to make ends meet, she worked at the Weathervane in Sanford, Maine, where she grew up. There, she learned how to hypnotize lobster by placing them on their heads and rubbing their shell. She later demonstrated this trick to me while my brother stood on his tiptoes to view the strange creature on the kitchen counter. She urged me to try the meat from this ruby red crustacean. Even drenched in melted butter, my face contorted at the chewiness and strange taste. “Seafood is an acquired taste,” she said to me. Being about eight years old, I had no clue what she meant by that statement, but I would surely acquire the taste for seafood years later.
My favorite meal is baked haddock. While I still find lobster slightly too chewy for my liking (a statement that no Mainer should ever utter), I fell in love with the flaky texture of haddock. While I enjoy it prepared many different ways, grilled, baked, fried (who doesn’t like it fried, right?), my favorite version is baked in the oven covered in lemon, cheese, and Ritz cracker crumbs. While taste buds have a tendency to change with age, the environment I grew up in, both at home and in the state of Maine, has changed my view of seafood to such a degree that I now associate it with my favorite meal.
My mom has been making this meal for as long as I can remember, and when asked why she thought I liked this dish, she said, “Well, for me, and I think for you too, it is a warm, yummy comfort food that we can make together. When you were a child, I thought it would be a good way to get you to start liking seafood with the cheese and buttery cracker topping”. My mom’s absolute love for all seafood has “rubbed off” on me from the amount of exposure to it and her apparent determination to get me to enjoy it. Now that I do, my mom and I definitely connect over this meal. She doesn’t love to cook so her arsenal of meals is not large, but this is one meal that she would often make and taught me how as well. We start by melting butter and mixing it with lemon juice. We dip the “fix” in the mixture (a spelling mistake on the recipe card that my mom hastily copied down from my grandmother. She laughs when I read her the next step by saying “now dip the fix” instead of “dip the fish”). Cheese slices go on next, followed by a crushed Ritz cracker and butter topping. When the oven preheats to 350 degrees, we pop it in for about 30 minutes. When I asked her what this dish means to her, she answered, “Well, you know I love fish, but I also enjoy the time we spend together preparing it.” I agreed, and then she added, “Do you think we can make it next week?”. It seems that reminding her of the dish caused her to crave the taste and the camaraderie that it inspires between us. During our preparation, we usually discuss our days and gossip about family members (in the best way possible). Not only does this dish have an appeal on my palate, but it also plays a role in connecting my mom and me. More than the cheesy, salty, lemony taste of the meal, the conversation that my mom and I have while preparing the dish is really what makes it my favorite meal.
When you look up this dish online, there are instantly tons of results with more adjectives then just “baked” describing the haddock. One result is “New England Baked Haddock,” and another variation of the recipe is featured on mainelobsternow.com. This is clearly a regional dish, popular in the region that I grew up calling home. I remember the first time I heard my boyfriend mention that his dad was making baked “stuffed” haddock for dinner. “What does stuffed mean?” I asked. He responded, “I don’t know, it’s just what he calls it.” Upon tasting it, I realized that stuffed meant that in addition to the haddock, lemon, cheese, and cracker crumbs, his family adds lobster meat and baby shrimp to the mix. This is evidence that this recipe exists in several versions in New England. People living here are exposed to seafood more than in other areas because it is a significant part of our culture and industry. People who have lived here for generations created recipes to eat the food that was available to them. These recipes have been passed down for generations. My recipe comes from my grandmother. My boyfriend’s family has lived in Maine for many generations, and there is no doubt that it has been passed down as well. It is clear baked haddock is an enjoyable meal for Maine families, and I’m sure many have created bonds while cooking it, similar to my mom and me.
To Make it Yourself…
