Like sea gulls, we devoured the food for hours, picking tasty morsels from one table after another until gorged.

We followed Ecclesiastes to the letter: “A man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry.”

And that’s the edict of a summertime cookout when families and friends converge on the shore or in a grassy backyard to feast on Maine’s bounty. Shrimp with cocktail sauce, heated crabmeat dip rich with cream and cheese, tender corn harvested from local farms, fresh lettuce and cherry tomatoes, vats of potato salad, stuffed eggs, and smoked turkey.

Not to mention other gifts from the sea – the clams, mussels, cherrystone quahogs, and sweet lobster – served with small cups of melted butter or vinegar that drip down chins and onto sweat shirts.

Cookouts – in the twilight before a rising moon – are a favorite pastime for Down East residents who savor the season as well as the food and fellowship it provides.

Family reunions are held, anniversaries celebrated, wedding parties staged and birthdays observed, all centered around cookouts. Sometimes they’re elaborate, catered dinners, but most times they’re informal gatherings of folks toting food as they round the corner to view smoke rising from wood fires and steam streaming from lobster pots.

Kids performing somersaults near the patch of day lilies; others darting in and out of tents set up at the perimeter of the yard, in front of a tree line that leads up the mountain. Other youngsters holding baseball bats in one hand and hotdogs in the other; some poking sticks over the open fire, burning marshmallows to a crispy black before offering them to daring takers.

Relatives of all ages mingling and laughing, telling jokes to one another between eating slices of blueberry pie.

It’s all part of the scenario during the summer when grills and pots and covered smokers sit to one side of the porch and long tables bearing mounds of food sit to the other.

Or on the rocky shore at sunset, when plates heaped with seafood are balanced while people seek wide, flat spots on which to plop down and eat before finally rinsing their hands in cold tidal pools and settling in before a huge fire.

Everything tastes great outside whether it be ribs or chicken, hamburgers or clams, slaw or Popsicles. And those of us dining under Maine’s open skies know of no better thing than to eat, drink and be merry.