A Lobster in Every Pot: Recipes and Lore

More than 100 workmanlike recipes collected from Maine's lobstering community showcase this luxury food. A brief but helpful introduction to basics gives pointers on boiling, steaming and eating lobsters--including instructions for the microwave and gas grill. Cooks who tire of eating lobster plain can bake it with crabmeat stuffing or toss it into a white sauce for pasta. Those too squeamish for ingredients that stare back at them can buy cooked lobster to make a casserole with water chestnuts and bacon or one of several quiches. Trivia and lobstering reminiscences are worked into the margins: here one learns how long a live lobster keeps in a refrigerator, how to tell a male from a female and even how to hypnotize one and stand it on its head. The text is liberally embellished with black-and-white drawings and photos, most depicting lobster catchers at work, although a few, like the 1950s' publicity shot of a ``couple looking delighted with broiled lobster dinner,'' will appear either old-fashioned or post-modern, depending on the reader. White is marine communications director for the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine. (Oct.)