In the past decade, a new wave of 21st-century minimalists has revived this sentiment, downsizing homes, closets and jobs to embrace miniaturized lives that are big on ideals. Authors and bloggers, such as Joshua Becker, Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus (“The Minimalists”), have become gurus for harried people who find themselves swimming in clutter or stressed out by debt. These would-be Thoreaus are inspiring many to shrug off the yoke of the modern work-to-spend consumer cycle.

Today’s devotees of minimal, conscientious living have a variety of motivations, from concern about the environment to the pursuit of post-recession self-sufficiency. Many are turning their backs on unfulfilling corporate careers, or the drudgery of organizing, cleaning and storing possessions. They’re seeking lives that can be supported without 80-hour work weeks or ecological damage—and emphasize values such as family, community and nature.

And while few can actually manage to pare their lives down to the dimensions of a Thoreau-size box, many are nonetheless adopting downscaled living where they can—choosing modest homes and ethically-sourced products, sharing or donating goods and volunteering for social causes.

Photo credit Trent Bell

Simplicity is a way of life in Maine

Maine, for more than a few reasons, is a natural fit for minimalist living. “Most Mainers already live pretty simply,” said Jan Robinson, a designer and founder of EcoHome design studio in Portland. “We’re ‘what you see is what you get,’ salt-of-the-earth people.”

Maine’s pristine, unadorned beauty also beckons people outdoors. “You’re living outside as much as possible here,” said Jen DeRose, editor of Maine Home+Design. “You don’t need to have a big house to hunker down in.” Factor in the cost of heating during cold winters, and choosing smaller spaces with fewer belongings makes practical sense.

And Maine has a solid tradition of progressive experiments—spanning back-to-the-landers like Scott and Helen Nearing, communes such as Twitchell Hill and the artist colonies Monhegan and Hewnoaks—which have given rise to a new generation pursuing groundbreaking solutions for ethical living. Mainers, in short, can teach us a thing or two about the good life.

Prefab eco homes lower dependence on fossil fuels 

In 2006, architects Phil Kaplan and Jesse Thompson began building their first high-performance structure, a 700-square-foot, net-zero-energy barn in Rockport. Interest in modest, affordable homes started growing after the 2008 global financial crisis, spurring Kaplan Thompson to launch a sister firm, BrightBuilt Home, in 2013. The Portland-based company now produces elegant modular houses for those wanting energy independence and uncomplicated construction.

“A net-zero home focuses on three things: adding more insulation, improving the doors and windows, and tightening up the envelope,” said Kaplan. “In doing those things, the mechanical systems virtually drop away. There’s no oil, no gas, no propane—it’s all electric. And there’s not a lot of stuff to break.”

Photo credit: Trent Bell (left), Jamie Salomon (right)

BrightBuilt’s homes produce as much energy as they consume, thanks to thick, double-stud-wall construction, efficient appliances and solar heating and electric systems. It’s an approach that’s drawing everyone from ecologically-conscious millennial families to retirees who want low-maintenance houses. “We have a lot of ‘last-house lefties’—older couples for whom this is their last house,” said Kaplan. “They don’t want volatility. They want predictability, and to hedge against future energy costs. It just reduces variables.”

“Maine is a hotbed for this kind of building,” Kaplan added. “I think it has to do with the history, the Yankee attitude, and the climate.”

“There’s a little innovation bubble of practitioners who are doing this in Maine,” said architect Matthew O’Malia. “People value the natural beauty of the state, and they are prioritizing it in how they choose to live.” GO Logic, the Belfast-based design/build firm O’Malia co-founded in 2008, offers a range of prefab houses called GO Home. Inspired by European passive houses, GO Homes feature a heavily insulated airtight shell, a patented concrete slab foundation and triple-glazed windows and doors imported from Germany.

“With a typical three-bedroom house, our heating bill is around $200 a year,” said O’Malia. “The output of the heating system is equivalent to a hair dryer, which is about 2,000 watts of heat.”

GO Logic also has constructed socially-minded projects such as the Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage, a sustainable, intentional community of homes—connected by courtyards, garden plots and common houses for group meetings and meals—that is “like a grown-up back-to-the-lander commune for today.”

Responsibly-sourced furnishings for the modern minimalist

High-performance passive houses, however, raise a new challenge. “Homes now are much tighter than they used to be—they don’t breathe the way older homes do,” said Jan Robinson. “All of those toxins that we bring in are being held inside.” Robinson founded the EcoHome design studio in Portland to showcase the sustainably made furnishings she had been seeking in her ecologically-conscious interior-design practice.

EcoHome carries furniture and textiles produced without formaldehyde, flame retardants and other hazards. Cushions are made of plant-based materials, and wooden furnishings come from reclaimed or rapid-growth wood such as bamboo. There are Maine-crafted tables and benches that cleverly repurpose salvaged doors, as well as mirrors fashioned from antique windows.

“People are seeking more meaningful connections not only to other humans, but to their home and to their belongings,” said Robinson. “They want just a few really useful, good things instead of a bunch of disposable junk.”

Downsizing and decluttering for peace of mind

In a tidal cove in Tenants Harbor, Dayne Lamb and Gardner Stratton built a 625-square-foot, passive solar, steel-and-glass modern home from a kit designed by architect Rocio Romero. Nearly every decision was made with energy efficiency, simplicity and access to nature in mind, and the couple finds their streamlined routine to be liberating. “Our house doesn’t have to reflect how big anything is, whether it’s our egos or our bank accounts,” said Lamb. “You come into the cottage, and you just take a deep breath and your mind relaxes.”

Lamb and Stratton have few possessions beyond what they use daily. They keep the decor spare, compost much of their refuse and frequently use community resources such as their local library. “There’s nothing that’s hard to maintain or clean. You either wipe it or vacuum it,” said Lamb. “You don’t come in here and say, I want to buy more tchotchkes or pillows. It makes you a non-consumer because everything has answered itself in the design.”

Lamb and Stratton, like other Mainers opting for smaller dwellings, are employing creative strategies to maximize their living experience. “A lot of homeowners here are avid boaters or sailors, and they’re familiar with living in a really tight setup,” said DeRose. “We’ll see that same mentality in the homes they build. There’s lots of custom furniture and built-ins, using every square inch of available space.”

Photo credit: Trent Bell

Minimalists look for smaller-scale furniture that does double duty. Companies such as Endicott Home Furnishings and EcoHome both offer diminutive sofas as well as tables and seating with storage. “People are looking at the functionality of everything they bring in,” said Robinson. “Does it serve two purposes?”

Robinson found herself downsizing to a sustainability-built condo last year after her kids left home. “I asked myself of each item: ‘Do I really love it? Is it really useful? Do I use it all the time?’ And if the answer was no to any of those, it was gone. I see this with millennials like my children, too. They don’t want grandma’s antiques. They want to keep things simple.”

It’s all in keeping with the values of a place that, at heart, is thoroughly down to earth. “Living in Maine is accepting that it’s a quiet and humble place,” said O’Malia. “It makes for a really good, simple life.”

Headline image photo credit: Trent Bell

More than a century after Crosby broadcast Maine to the wider world as a sporting mecca, it still captures popular imagination as the ultimate wholesome, unspoiled place to escape, unplug and unwind. And for good reason: There’s virtually no fresh-air adventure the athletically-inclined can’t find in Maine—from hiking in Acadia and rock climbing on Mount Katahdin to surfing at Long Sands Beach, skiing at Sugarloaf and of course sailing all along the state’s stunning, craggy coastline.

Appalachian Trail end point on Mt. Katahdin, Baxter State Park, Maine. Photo Credit: iStockPhoto

Maine is well known for its time-honored legacy brands that help clothe and equip outdoor enthusiasts—but today it’s also home to a few independently-owned upstarts making their mark in outdoor adventures. These companies are consciously choosing to produce their goods locally, drawing inspiration from Maine’s unfinished beauty and hardy spirit to create game-changing products that speak to the modern athlete.

“Maine is the one place that I want to be on the East Coast,” said Mike St. Pierre, co-founder of Hyperlite Mountain Gear, based in Biddeford. “It’s the most vast wilderness, with big mountains and rivers, so it’s a great testing ground for our products.” For St. Pierre, being here sets his brand apart from sporting behemoths out west. “All those companies are so close together, and everyone is kind of getting ideas off of everyone else. Every year, every product kind of looks the same. We’re up here in our own little world.”

“I wouldn’t live anywhere else,” agreed Carolyn Brodsky, president of Sterling Rope, also in Biddeford, which makes state-of-the-art climbing and rescue products. “We get to live and play in the most beautiful environment in the country. There’s a ruggedness to Maine’s culture, and I like that from a manufacturing standpoint. We’re building a rope that is truly rugged.”

Ultralight gear for the modern backpacker 

In 2008, Mike St. Pierre, then a New York City chef and outdoors enthusiast, was on the hunt for lightweight products for his thru-hiking and packrafting expeditions. He came across Dyneema, a high-performance polyethylene fiber that was being used in sailcloth. Known as one of the world’s toughest fibers, Dyneema is up to 15 times stronger than steel of a comparable weight, yet floats on water thanks to its low density.

“At that time, there was really no one using it as a fabric form” in sporting gear, St. Pierre said. He began making backpacks and tents with the same waterproof, UV- and chemical-resistant Dyneema composite used for sailing, and Hyperlite Mountain Gear was born. Today the company, run by Mike and his brother, Dan St. Pierre, offers 20 ultralight backpacks and an array of tents, duffels and sacks for modern thru-hikers, packrafters and alpine and ice climbers.

“We’re kind of changing the game of outdoor gear,” St. Pierre said. “Practically everything in the outdoor industry is manufactured overseas, and it’s all about the hot new products every year. I think that’s one of the reasons we’ve grown, because we focus on specific products that the end user really needs.”

The less they have to wear or carry, the more adventurers can enjoy their experience. For a sport like packrafting, which combines trail hiking with rafting, the outdoorsman must haul gear for two separate activities. “There’s the inflatable raft, which is 7 or 8 pounds,” St. Pierre said. “With a paddle and helmet and a dry suit, I’m at about 15 pounds just for boating. Then there’s 10 pounds of backpacking equipment. That’s 25 pounds.” Hyperlite’s packs lighten that load, at between 0.28 pounds and 2.56 pounds, while their four-person tent is a featherlight 1.3 pounds. “The only way we’re able to do this stuff nowadays is because the gear has gotten so much lighter,” said St. Pierre.

While this advanced technology is certainly a lure for masters and pros, it’s also making wilderness exploring more accessible to novices and older people who might otherwise find it daunting. “We get calls from people talking about how they thought they couldn’t do these activities anymore because of their age and how hard carrying the weight is,” St. Pierre said. “With all these lightweight products, they can actually get out there again.”

Mike St. Pierre on a quick day hike on Tumbledown Mountain, Maine. Photo credit: Brian Threlkeld

A high-tech lifeline for climbers  

“Gravity is a very, very powerful force,” said Carolyn Brodsky of Sterling Rope. “So we take what we do very seriously.”

When Brodsky co-founded Sterling in 1992, climbing ropes on the market were made primarily from nylon that was hydrophilic—meaning it absorbed a lot of water—which weakened the fibers and made them more prone to stretching and abrasion. Brodsky and her then-husband, both avid sailors, manufactured the cores of climbing ropes from a moisture-repelling coating used in the nautical world.

Their DryCore, as it would be called, was then combined with a special dry coating to produce a groundbreaking, highly water-resistant rope for the climbing market that was just then taking off. The company’s early ropes also offered the advantage of being lighter and smaller in diameter than the products typically on the market.

Sterling, which this year celebrates a quarter century in business, now produces a wide range of dynamic ropes for rock and ice climbers, alpinists, canyoneers and gym climbers, as well as static ropes for firefighters, arborists, rescue workers and military personnel. Its proprietary technology has evolved to the point where “the rope absorbs less than 5 percent water, versus typically between 30 to 40 percent when a rope gets wet,” Brodsky said.

“The mountain’s always going to be there. The question is, are you going to be able to come back and climb it again.”

Caption: Skier on Sugarloaf Mountain, Maine. Photo credit: Ethan Austin

Farm-to-pouch meals for the discerning palate 

For decades, campers and hikers had few choices when it came to trail food—namely freeze-dried packets of chili, lasagna or beef stroganoff, or instant soups, cereals or rice, much of it sodium- or preservative-laden. Jennifer Scism, chef and co-founder of Good To-Go, a maker of high-end backpacking meals in Kittery, had eaten more than enough of it on her many hiking trips with her husband before she finally gave up and resolved to find something both healthier and tastier.

A French Culinary Institute–trained chef and transplant from New York City, where she co-owned the acclaimed restaurant Annisa, Scism began tinkering in her own kitchen. “At a certain point, I was like, ‘I can’t eat Annie’s mac ’n’ cheese for two weeks straight,’” she said. She cooked up a batch of her go-to comfort fare—Thai curry—placed it in a home dehydrator, and found the result to be surprisingly delicious. In fact, once the curry was rehydrated, it was hard to distinguish from fresh-cooked food.

Scism soon realized there was a gaping hole in the market for gourmet, chef-prepared backpacking meals, and soon founded Good To-Go with her husband. “Everybody cares so much about food in their day-to-day life—the whole slow-food movement and farm-to-table,” Scism said. “But then, when you get out in the back country, people think of convenience before quality. You have guys and gals who are buying the best tents and the best climbing shoes and the best rope, and then they turn around and eat ramen.”

Good To-Go sources many ingredients from Maine farmers for its sophisticated, globe-trotting meals such as pad Thai, bibimbap, Indian vegetable korma and herbed mushroom risotto. “I dare you to think this is not a restaurant meal,” Scism said. “It seems just like it’s regular food.

Scism sees herself demystifying the wilderness experience and making it more attainable for everyone. With social media, “there’s people hiking off a cliff and stuff like that,” Scism said. “That’s almost been a detriment to the outdoor industry, because a lot of people are like, ‘I can’t do that.’ And we’re trying to say, ‘Backpacking doesn’t have to be scary or intimidating.’” To that end, her products are helping bring at least one creature comfort to the trail. “Our thinking is, just get out there and enjoy yourself and appreciate it.”

When anyone thinks of prominent Maine companies, “you immediately think good, solid company brand,” Scism said. “And that has been really inspirational in what I do.”

Headline image photo credit: Brian Threlkeld

Thoreau later wrote in his famous travelogue, “The Maine Woods,” “Nature was here something savage and awful, though beautiful. I looked with awe at the ground I trod on, to see what the Powers had made there, the form and fashion and material of their work.”

Maine’s rough-hewn vistas of sea, forest and mountain have long stirred the souls of poets, novelists, memoirists and essayists. Generations of writers have looked to Maine for source material, mining everything from its rugged coast and dark timberlands to its small, tight-knit communities for tales of love and betrayal, suspense and horror. It has served as both muse and staging ground for scribes as diverse as Sarah Orne Jewett and Stephen King, Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow and Carolyn Chute.

Perhaps it’s the tension between beauty and grit here—or between isolation and community, or between the rural-industrial inland and the well-heeled coast—that writers find so compelling. Whatever the reason, Maine, and its writers, have produced some of the most captivating literary works in America. “Authors are drawn to places that are authentic,” said Maine novelist Paul Doiron, “because one of the goals of good writing is to tell the truth.”

In recent years, the number of writers in Maine has only grown, thanks to organizations that nurture native talent and bring it to the world—such as the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and the Maine Humanities Council. For many of Maine’s contemporary authors, inspiration still comes from what they see as timeless, enduring elements: the people, the landscape, the climate and the history. Throw in the support system of these thriving writer communities, and you’ve got the makings of a bona-fide literary scene.

Old Port in Portland, Maine

Land of myth and metaphor

With a stunning terrain that spans craggy, fog-veiled shores, moody pine thickets and soaring granite peaks, Maine seems stage-set for narrative drama. Add to that long stretches of winter (with “dark nights of crackling ice crystals,” as travel writer Paul Theroux once described it), and you have the ideal conditions for turning inward.

“The weather here is extremely conducive to writing,” said Monica Wood, author of several books set in her home state, including “When We Were Kennedys: A Memoir from Mexico, Maine” and “Ernie’s Ark.” “I write year-round, but I really look forward to winter, because I know it’s a fertile writing time—those snowy days where you feel like you’re in a snow globe. The weather kind of cushions you.”

The elements very often make themselves felt in the literature of Maine—whether it’s the enigmatic force of the tides in the poems of Philip Booth or a fateful, life-altering blizzard in novelist Lewis Robinson’s “Water Dogs.” “There’s a deep engagement with place in many, many writings by Mainers,” said Margot Kelley, editor in chief of quarterly literary journal “The Maine Review.” “They’re so connected to it, whether it’s writing about island life, or writing about a fishing life, there’s definitely a sense that the physical environment makes its way into people’s texts here.”

Of course, no discussion of Maine’s literary heritage would be complete without mentioning the state’s most famous native son, Stephen King, whose horror masterpieces set within desolate hamlets and woods have helped cultivate a robust mystery and thriller-writing community here, from Doiron to Tess Gerritsen to Gayle Lynds. “There is a bit of a Stephen King effect,” said Robert Kelley, publisher of “The Maine Review.” “It’s an otherworldly landscape in a lot of ways, so that I think the place itself has an air of mystery to it.”

An enduring sense of history 

There are few places in Maine where one can’t hear the echo of a literary icon. Just outside Camden, Mount Battie’s stunning views of Penobscot Bay inspired Edna St. Vincent Millay’s 1912 poem “Renascence.” Just around the bay on the Blue Hill Peninsula, blueberry barrens were the setting of Robert McCloskey’s children’s favorite “Blueberries for Sal.”

E. B. White spent his summers as a boy at Bear Spring Camps in the Belgrade Lakes region, and later returned as a father, writing of Great Pond, “This seemed an utterly enchanted sea, this lake you could leave to its own devices for a few hours and come back to, and find that it had not stirred, this constant and trustworthy body of water.” Or, Thoreau’s very path can be retraced via foot and canoe along the Thoreau-Wabanaki Trail, which led him in a northward loop from Bangor through “stern and savage” forests of spruce and balsam fir.

Great Pond at Bear Spring Camps, Maine. Photo credit: Bear Spring Camps

Literary fodder can be found in Maine’s well-preserved historic towns, with their elegantly weathered clapboard houses and high-steepled churches. “A lot of Maine escaped the urban renewal of the 60s,” said Susan Sterling, Portland-based essayist and short-story writer, and author of the novel “Dancing in the Kitchen.” “When you go into a place like Portland, the Old Port, a lot of the old buildings are still there. Everything hasn’t been torn down and rebuilt. So you have a sense of history, a sense of space, and you also have a sense of time going back.” In other words, you’ve got many of the critical elements of storytelling waiting to reveal themselves.

The grounding presence of community and family 

People are at the heart of any good story. And when it comes to rich, complicated characters, Maine offers up a trove of inspiration. Many a brilliant writer, from Richard Russo to Elizabeth Strout, has dissected the lives of ordinary people living in its villages and ports, rendering their seemingly workaday existence in words that sing on the page.

For many contemporary Maine authors, including Sterling, writing revolves around the ever-shifting dynamics within families and towns. “In my work, I’m always thinking about where you belong, where you feel at home and how you deal with where you’re from,” she said. “And even though I’m not from Maine, it’s always a grounding presence for me.”

For Doiron, the author of the Mike Bowditch crime series that includes “The Poacher’s Son,” “Trespasser” and the upcoming “Knife Creek,” Maine’s perch on the shoulder of America accounts for its strongly protected sense of identity. “Maine has remained true to itself,” Doiron said. “It was settled by people who were always marginal in the great push westward in America. And it’s been a great cultural benefit that we’ve been able to sit here at the edge and be our own selves.” For Doiron, it’s writers like Carolyn Chute, whose sketches of her rural inland community—people who live along life’s backroads—who best embody Maine’s tradition of authentic storytelling.

Stone tower at the peak of Mount Battie, Camden, Maine

A thriving literary culture

To get a feel for the dynamic literary scene here, one need only look to the Portland-based Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, a 1,200-plus-member nonprofit that bestows the annual Maine Literary Award, co-sponsors festivals such as the Belfast Poetry Festival and the “Maine Crime Wave” for the state’s thriller writers and holds regular readings, workshops and socials. The Alliance “has a way of making us feel like one community, even though we’re so spread out,” Wood said. “It’s a really noncompetitive, supportive environment. It’s something writers truly need, because they spend so much time in a community of one.”

At “The Maine Review,” in Port Clyde, the Kelleys are committed to publishing Maine writers alongside those from across the globe. About 20 percent of the content in each issue is from native writers. “We feel it’s really important to create a home for Maine writers, but to also make sure that those writers are in conversation with writing from around the world,” said Margot Kelley.

Of course, one of the easiest ways to immerse yourself in the writing community is to drop into one of the state’s independent bookstores, which promote works and hold readings by local talent. Visitors have outstanding options to choose from: Longfellow Books and Print in Portland, Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, Hello Hello in Rockland, Left Bank Books in Belfast and Blue Hill Books in Blue Hill.

“The reason all these wonderful writers are here is they find Maine is an inspirational place to create art,” Doiron said. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m here, too.”

View from Mount Battie, Camden, Maine

Headline image: The Maine Highlands region

And it’s hardly Portland alone that’s bearing witness to this thriving foodie scene. From Maine’s Southern Coast up to Bar Harbor and beyond, the avid eater can find some of the most toothsome and creative fare anywhere—at laid-back food trucks and fine-dining stalwarts alike. These groundbreaking chefs seek out the best of Maine’s fresh bounty, while drawing hungry crowds and James Beard nominations in their wake.

Some have pulled up roots elsewhere to come here, while others were Maine-born-and-bred chefs who circled the world, then came back home. They could cook anywhere—in bustling hubs such as Chicago or New York, say—but they’ve decided to hang their aprons in Maine for a reason.

Photo Credit: Drifters Wife (top), Honey Paw (bottom)

Evolving tastes

“The food scene has changed so dramatically here,” said chef Sara Jenkins. “There were good places in Maine 10 years ago, but they were much fewer and farther between than they are now. People up here are more open to something different.”

She’s something of an authority on the matter. Jenkins was born in Camden and her mother, the acclaimed food writer Nancy Harmon Jenkins, also hails from Maine. Thanks to her parents’ careers, she grew up eating her way through Italy, Spain and Lebanon. Jenkins honed her skills in Boston and New York, where she headed up two lauded restaurants, Porchetta and Porsena, before returning to Maine in 2016 to open Nina June in Rockport.

“We call it Maine in the Mediterranean,” Jenkins said, “because it’s all my Mediterranean influences, my Mediterranean history, and then working that in with Maine ingredients.” What that means is lush, locally-sourced produce, seafood, and meats nudged in the direction of North Africa, Italy and Spain through citrus and aromatic spices. Maine halibut is poached in olive oil, radishes are made fragrant with za’atar, bucatini is topped with a slow-cooked ragu of braised local lamb neck.

For Jenkins, the classically Mediterranean vegetables she is able to source from farms such as Fine Line in Searsmont and Erickson Fields in Rockport are peerless. “It’s just gorgeous, gorgeous stuff,” she said. “We’re getting everything from asparagus on through beautiful tomatoes and eggplant that we got last year well into October. And you get to work with these farmers in such intimate ways.”

Native flavors for sophisticated palates

For Maine’s new wave of young chefs, the state’s abundant raw ingredients are a huge asset, and they see this as the foundation on which to build highly sophisticated, experimental layers of taste and texture. At The Honey Paw in Portland, partners Mike Wiley, Andrew Taylor and Arlin Smith work with their chef de cuisine, Lars Taylor, to devise a dazzling menu of Southeast Asian-influenced noodle and rice bowls.

The restaurant’s approach is to take Thai or Indonesian staples such as khao soi or mee goreng and conjure them into something at once familiar and jolting. One of their standards, a crepe based on Vietnamese banh xeo, incorporates masa harina into the batter, which envelops braised pork trotter, mussels and tomato sambal—all tied together with a nuoc cham dipping sauce made with local maple syrup.

“That smoky pork, corny crepe and sweet-spicy maple almost makes you think about bacon and grits and hot sauce and maple syrup,” Wiley said. “So we thought that might be a nice, familiar way to introduce people to this technique or this sort of dish.”

One of The Honey Paw’s culinary weapons is fresh, locally-grown herbs and spices—ginger, turmeric and lemongrass—which are nothing short of astonishing in their flavor profiles. The turmeric the restaurant buys from farms such as South Paw in Freedom, Wiley said, is unlike the roots that come from anywhere else, with a heady tropical fruit aroma, almost like that of kaffir lime. “Guests are so surprised when they put it to their mouths,” Wiley said. “They’re like, ‘Oh my god, this tastes like sour-spicy honeydew melon—what is going on here?’

“We are seeing some Southeast Asian pantry staples cultivated here with great success, and the terroir of Maine is going to make that vegetable or that fruit taste just a little bit different. It gives our food a little bit of its idiosyncrasy or individuality.”

Photo Credit: Drifters Wife

Adapting global dishes

Up in Brunswick, chef Cara Stadler makes a similar point about the flavors imparted by Maine’s pristine soil and water. At her restaurant Tao Yuan, “it all starts with the product, and then it morphs into how regional Chinese influences mix with the whole product.” Stadler recently began working with the ME Water Buffalo Company in Appleton, which sells outstanding water-buffalo milk, burrata and yogurt. “We’re doing a lamb chuar—lamb on a stick,” she said. “It’s with a cilantro relish with peanuts and a sweet soy sauce and peppers, and it has the yogurt as the sauce—it’s so delicious.”

For some time, Stadler has been enamored with a particular wild mustard green found in China that, when fermented, produces a distinct taste—an intense floral quality she was never able to replicate with greens in the States. But as luck would have it, a year ago one of the farmers she works with began harvesting spring flowers, tops and shoots from turnip greens that turned out to have a nearly identical flavor. With a bit of Maine knowhow and improvisation, Stadler can finally re-create a beloved Chinese staple.

A foodie destination

Just as the tides bring in hauls of fresh fish along Maine’s coast each day, a new wave of culinary adventurers and food obsessives has been lapping at its shores in the last decade. And when the foodies come, they flock to small and intimate eateries like Drifters Wife in Portland, founded by Orenda and Peter Hale, transplants from the Brooklyn restaurant world.

At Drifters Wife, chef Ben Jackson offers a pared-down menu that elevates some true Maine standouts. There’s pan-roasted cod, or oysters and littleneck clams bathed in stinging nettle broth. There’s sourdough bread with dulse butter, made with seaweed collected in the Gulf of Maine by a forager named Larch Hansen. “The dulse is really sweet and tobacco-y and super earthy, but yet of the ocean,” Jackson said. All of it pairs beautifully with the complex natural wines—among them bottles of sparkling made with Maine grapes from the Warren-based Oyster River Winegrowers—that are as much part of the experience as the food.

Photo Credit: Honey Paw

For the Hales, as for many other culinary pioneers here, Maine offers the ideal mix of rugged beauty and resources to do what they want. “Maine’s lure is really romantic,” said Orenda Hale. “It’s by the ocean and it’s just beautiful, and has access to the best wild seafood and produce.” Peter Hale added: “We’re of the thought that if you have good enough wine and really good food, you can’t really screw it up.” The many epicureans who follow them to Maine, it seems, all agree.

Headline image photo credit: Honey Paw