As late as 1997, the lobster roll was no more than a lazy, little-known Yankee concoction, the kind of thing that the family might discover on a New England shore during summer vacation. Every summer brought new families, new discoveries, new crustacean ecstasy for thousands in bathing suits.

By David Rosengarten, Flavored Nation

As late as 1997, the lobster roll was no more than a lazy, little-known Yankee concoction, the kind of thing that the family might discover on a New England shore during summer vacation. Every summer brought new families, new discoveries, new crustacean ecstasy for thousands in bathing suits.

But the impact on American dining “back home,” from October to May? Zilch. That summertime delight may have had claws, but it had no legs.

Truth be told, it didn’t have a long history, either. There are multitudinous lobster roll origin stories, but none takes it back before the late 19th century. According to a cookbook by the New York Evening Post published in 1908, American housewives in the Victorian era were finding a whole hot lobster very messy to serve gracefully at a dinner party and the lobster salad, en route to becoming a lobster roll, was invented. The commercial distribution of hot dog buns began in 1912, and its future was assured.

By 1997, all those stories had coalesced into one central lobster roll perception — the dish comes from Maine, where a funny-looking split-top hot dog bun is filled with chunks of lobster and sometimes celery, bound together by mayonnaise. The lobster filling is essentially a lobster salad, served cold.

And that’s when the trouble started.

Suddenly, around the turn of the 21st century, the lobster roll was in the national spotlight. The roll mattered, and that brought it lots of new attention — and disputes.

The watershed moment, you could argue, was July 2, 1997, when Rebecca Charles opened Pearl Oyster Bar in New York City. Charles was a New Yorker but had a long family tradition of summer vacations in Kennebunk, Maine, going back to 1917. When she turned to cheffing and finally opened her own restaurant, the 20-seat seafood counter that was Pearl in the perennially chic West Village, the lobster roll got lots of play, both from the customers and the press. Bon Appetit named the lobster roll “dish of the year” in 2003, and we were off to the races. Everyone was eating it, talking about it, and many were selling it.

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Those looking for a niche were suddenly examining lobster roll history more closely, looking for spin, and an amazing discovery was made.

Research appeared identifying Amagansett, New York, as the birthplace of the lobster roll. Other evidence pointed to a place named Perry’s, in Milford, Connecticut, as the 1929 progenitor of the lobster roll. The most startling thing about the Perry’s lobster roll was that it had no mayo, and it was not cold! It featured hot lobster chunks on a griddled bun slathered with melted butter.

The swarms descended. Lobster-roll seekers who had always headed northeast to Maine were now discovering Connecticut as a lobster roll destination and, as if overnight, the hot lobster roll drenched with melted butter was the new trend.

In fact, the Connecticut lobster roll has become so important in the contemporary culinary tapestry that we at Flavored Nation decided to name it the iconic state dish of Connecticut. Of course, we also decided to name the Maine lobster roll the iconic state dish of Maine. So, when we gather together 50 chefs from 50 states for a weekend of iconic American eating in St. Louis in October, a Connecticut chef and a Maine chef will be there, prepping their rolls, facing off in an historic battle.

Captain Mike Harden is the Connecticut chef coming to St. Louis. He owns and operates a food truck called Lobstercraft that is usually found at lunchtime in a Connecticut town like Greenwich, where I caught up with him recently, or in the towns of nearby Westchester County.

Has Harden, a Connecticut resident for 30 years, been way ahead of the rest of us in loving the warm Connecticut roll?

“Nope,” says the Captain. “I discovered it only six years ago. I flipped. I loved it so much that I immediately got into the food truck business, selling warm lobster rolls.”

How are the sales of warm lobster rolls going?

“Damned well,” says Harden. “We call ‘em ‘The Coastal,’ and we’re selling about 25,000 of them a year.”

Because Harden is in a territory that for years had an allegiance to “Maine” lobster rolls, I had to ask him about requests for those.

“The Dirty Mainard?” he said with a chuckle. “We’ll make you one if you want it, but hardly anyone ever asks for it. I can tell you that my New England customers (those from points northeast) have never asked me for The Dirty Mainard. Not once.

“I do understand,” he added, “that in northern Connecticut you’ll still find lots of cold lobster rolls with mayo. They invented the warm, buttery roll up there in 1929, but I’m told they don’t pay much attention to it.”

The scene in Maine today is a little different. The cold, mayo-enhanced lobster roll, sometimes called the Lobster Salad Roll, is still the standard in the state. The Maine chef we’ve asked to come to St. Louis in October for a confrontation with Connecticut’s Captain Mike is Bree Douty, a Maine native who is the chef and owner of McLoons Lobster Shack in South Thomaston, on the midcoast of Maine.

“Sure,” she told me, “once upon a time it was all lobster salad roll around here. These days, however, we have lots of customers asking for the warm, buttery lobster roll.”

So both are available?

“Absolutely,” says Douty. “Most restaurants around here now offer both. And both are ordered at our place, to the tune of about 50-50. I think the chief factor is that many health-conscious people have a resistance to mayonnaise and that resistance has grown with the years.”

As Captain Mike from Connecticut says, “in Boothbay, Maine, and north those rolls are all drowning in mayonnaise, always Hellmann's.”

Douty agrees that the tradition was excessive and she now accommodates diners who want less mayo or mayo on the side, but Connecticut wins the health debate. Plenty of contemporary Maine diners eschew the local mayo rolls and go with the Connecticut concept instead, even if they’re switching out mayonnaise for butter.

Another factor to consider is kitchen logistics. Douty and Harden admit that it’s easier to produce a Maine-style lobster roll because the “salad” can sit in the fridge for a few days, awaiting its meeting with the bun.

“But for the Connecticut-style roll,” says Captain Mike, “you have to take the time to figure out how to produce it. You want the lobster to be just warm. Our system is complicated. It involves Cryovacs and double boilers. If the lobster gets overcooked while you’re warming it, it is not pleasant to chew.”

Perhaps that’s why a lot of newcomers to the Connecticut roll in Maine, according to Douty, “basically serve cold lobster in the bun with warm butter poured over it.” And at McLoons? “Absolutely not,” says Douty, sounding oddly proud of her Connecticut-style Lobster Roll in Maine. “It has to be hot lobster and hot butter.”

Perhaps the ultimate reckoning in the lobster roll war has to do with chef’s eating preferences. Captain Mike pulls no punches: “The warm, Connecticut lobster roll is far superior,” he boasts. “I’d order that one every time.”

And Douty, who serves an equal amount of each? What does she eat?

“I like both treatments,” she confesses.

Does that mean sometimes she eats one kind, sometimes another?

“No,” she corrects me. “When I eat a lobster roll, I want both mayonnaise and melted butter on it.”

I call it a moral victory for Connecticut.

 

David Rosengarten is content director for FLAVORED NATION. He has won a James Beard Award for his cookbook “It’s ALL American Food,” and another Beard Award for his newsletter, “The Rosengarten Report.” Rosengarten appeared in the first show on the Food Network, and went on to appear in approximately 2,500 Food Network shows, including his cooking show “TASTE.” Find out more at flavorednation.com.