Maybe no food is more iconic of New England than the lobster. Lobster can be excellent, or it can be mediocre. I hate to see tourists come to Plymouth and finally try a long-anticipated lobster dinner, knowing that they are probably getting a second-rate lobster at a chain restaurant.
What makes for a first-rate lobster?
As with all seafood, freshness is paramount. This is an especially tricky situation with lobsters, because they are kept "alive" in tanks until they are taken out to be cooked. I put "alive" in quotes because the tanks are a critical part of the supply chain, and an often-neglected one. Look at the tank in a supermarket, or in a huge restaurant that buys lobsters faster than it sells them: is there a layer of lobsters stifled under three more layers of its brothers? How good is the circulation down there? What wastes are building up, and affecting the water in the next few layers? When you order your lobster from the top layer at 7pm, was it two layers down all afternoon until the dinner crowd bought the tastier top few?
Seawater is a complex substance. A bucket of seawater off the end of Town Wharf in Plymouth is unique in all the world; it includes thousands of minerals, organic acids, suspended matter, microorganisms, and maybe a fish if you're lucky. It contains moonbeams and mermaid tears and the memories of sunken treasure if you want to get poetic anbout it.