HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1959-10-01, Page 3Styles Mn Picnics
'Wray Down Last
Our old "Merchants' 1'ienics"
came to mind again the other
day as 1 reflected on the grow•
1 n g popularity of our Maine
summertime gustatory fiestas.
It is -quite a crowded calendar,
The poultrymen were the first
tohit the big time, with their
,annual "Broiler Day" — at
Which the industry hands out
an oversize feed at bargain
prices, and entices people by the
thousands, They have a chicken
queen and numerous other at-
tractions, and have even gone
to the tub -thumper extent of
lining up a professional aston
fisher, Truly, it is a big time,
No doubt the success of this
gave the lobstermen an idea, for
a dozen years ago they started
their "Seafood Festival," which
is dedicated to the gastronomic
extermination of the Maine lob-
ster. A crane lifts tons of these
delightful picnic companions in-
to vast cookers, and in a three-
day frolic they feed some 20,000
people deployed within sight
and sound of the lobster's native
heath. Neptune comes forth
from the briny, a Sea Queen
cavorts amongst the crowd, and
nobody needs to go away hun-
g r y. (Incidentally, these mon-
strous picnics are all over for
this year, and tourists who miss-
ed them will have to wait until
1960.)
This year, after a preliminary
-tryout last year, a new one
burst upon the olfactory scene
—a Baked Bean Festival up in
the old C. A. Stephens country
at South Paris, Deep bean -holes
were inserted into the ground,
lined with stones, and huge iron
cauldrons of prime Maine dry
beans were cooked slowly. Just
.as in the old logging camps.
The event re-created all the old
baked - bean lore of Main e;•
everybody broke out the le-
gends and recipes. It was hailed
as a huge success, and is now
i established as one of Maine's
,gala summertime affairs.
So, you can see why I reflect-
ed on our old Merchants' Pic-
nic. I think somehow ours was
,a far more wonderful outing,
one reason being that there was
no cashier at the head of the
line. It was free. The town's
storekeepers, grateful for the'
past year's business, kittied up
and shared the bill.' Every one
elf them, from Gus Derosier to
Dennis Bibber, would say to
SNAIL STUFFING — In the
time-honored manner, Pat Su-
zuki, of the Broadway show
' Flower Drum Song," stuffs
snails back into their shells be-
fore baking and eating. She
sampled the delicacies at a
food show.
every customer who came in
during the weeks before the
pienio, "See you at the picnic,
now -- bring your appetite,"
I -low big was the town? We
were told it was "about 2,500,"
And we were a lobster-eatin'
people, so only the babes in
arms would go to the pienio and ,
not join in. Lobsters, then, were
retailing at not over 2Q¢ a pound,
and you could often get "shorts"
and "pistols" for the taking. 1
have no idea why a one -clawed
lobster was known as a pistol.
They'd gat fgihting, and clamp
one another's claws off, and the
Maimed were home -table fare,
Besides the 3,000 to 4,000 lob-
sters piled up (you didn't think
we just ate one, did you?) there
would be ample clams. I used to
dig clams now and then, and
got as much as •a dollar a bar-
rel for thein. A dollar was high,
Today you can drop $3.50 or
$4,60 a ,peck for clams, and it's
a good thing the steelworkers
haven't heard what a clam dig-
ger makes,
But pollution was scarcer
then; the grass hadn't invaded
the flats; and easy shipping
hadn't created the demand, The
town was jealous of its own
flats, and was c a r e f u l about
non-residents, too. They'd cart
in barrels of clams, dripping
and shaded from the sun with
rockweed, and steam them as'
long as anybody' wanted to eat.
Oh, yes — these were the great -
necked clams, not the tough,
chewy quahogs known as clams
by those who don't know clams.
Probably an event of this kind,
if staged t o d a y, would draw
fewer people. I think the 20,-
000 people who go to the lab-
ster do, relatively speaking, is
a poorer percentage than we
had. There was some influx of
old -homers, and even then we
had a few summer residents
who "spent the season." But It
was for the town, and the town
only, ,and scarcely anybody
missed it.
They'd have a ball game, and
some sports for the childers.
You could go swimming if the
tide served, and if the tide was
coming they'd have a cunner-
catching c on test for town
champ, One year, I remember,
they had a "cunner skinning"
contest — a prize to the person
who dressed a dozen cunners
neatest and fastest. They are a
spiny ,crittur, some kind of a
sea perch, and while the meat
is sweet and makes a magnifi-
cent chowder, the difficulty of
preparing them deters wider
use.
The demise of the Merchants'
Picnic coincided precisely with
the appearance of the absentee -
owned chain store. Two or three
of them were set up, distressing
the home -town owners, and
when it came time to pass the
hat for the annual picnic a new
note was heard. Managers, not
empowered to make such deci-
sions for their distant corpora-
tions, said they would take it up
with the home office.
Home offices, of course, 'didn't
know what the managers were
talking about. There was some-
thing .distasteful in feeding free
lobsters to people who traded
at the Cash & Carry. The town,
as it had been known for over
a century, had a divided front
street. "I had an awful good
time at the picnic!" was the
way we greeted storekeepers,
but we had no reason to say
it again.
Perhaps these mammoth sum-
mertime gorges in festival style
serve their own generation full
as well. Perhaps. _— by John
Gould in The Christian Science
Monitor.
In Islay, Australia, when two
cars collided head on in the mid-
dle of the road, the mayor step-
ped out of one, the chief of po-
lice out of the other,
8. Served at
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