Lobster + Ice Cream?

Road tripping in Maine recently, my friends and I pulled over at Red’s Eats, the iconic lobster shack long praised as the spot to grab an authentic Maine lobster roll. Unsurprisingly, I suppose, it didn’t live up to the hype. We got a rather bland $17 roll that seemed to be coasting on its widespread fame for putting more than a whole lobster on each roll. Still, if I’m stopping for a Maine lobster roll, I care more about the taste than the amount of food, right? Apologies if that makes me un-American.

Stuffed with lobster but not sated, we instinctively followed the “Lobster Ice Cream!” sign pointing next door to Lear’s Ice Cream. Now this time, I was excepting something gimmicky—“lobster” flavored ice cream actually made from chemicals—but got something legit. There is actual lobster meat all up in this ice cream. A lot of it: three lobsters in each 2-gallon batch, pureed and then mixed into a sea salt base.

And it tastes like lobster, too. I have to admit this was perhaps the first ice cream cone in my three decades of life that I failed to finish; it was just too rich. But it’s definitely worth sharing with a group.

Unsightly, consider this your next assignment.