From the Red Hook Lobster Pound in Brooklyn to the Ironside in San Diego, foodies across North America are all about lobster rolls. Whether you enjoy them at a beachside food truck or a Michelin-starred restaurant (you can even make them at home), lobster rolls are the summer sandwich with small-town roots. Like many of the most timeless and coveted developments in culinary history, lobster rolls were invented by home cooks who didn’t have much money. (Lovers of Tuscan cucina povera, take note!).
Aside from the deliciousness, the preparation consists of white bread, butter and lobster meat. If you are a New England fisherman, lobster is an ingredient you can easily get. The original American colonists who landed on Plymouth Rock considered lobster a poor man’s source of protein due to its local abundance. Lobster only became a delicacy later.
It’s probably no surprise that lobster rolls originated in the Northeast, but lore has it that they first appeared in Connecticut, specifically the Cape Cod region. It all started in 1929 at Perry’s Restaurant in Milford, Connecticut, when a traveling liquor salesman strolled by. The famished nomadic merchant was in desperate need of a portable sandwich (selling liquor doesn’t stop for anyone, not even a hungry one), so Perry’s owner Harry Perry (great name) quickly whipped up a hot grilled lobster sandwich to satisfy the man’s special needs. And baddabing, baddaboom, the lobster roll was born.
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Is the restaurant’s fame deserved? John Mariani’s “Encyclopedia for American Food and Drink” (via CT Post) states that lobster rolls “may have originated at a restaurant called Perry’s in Milford, where owner Harry Perry made them for a regular customer named Ted Hales sometime in the 1920s.” Perry’s even had a sign out front until 1977 that read, “Home of the Famous Lobster Roll.” According to the story, Perry’s also enlisted the help of nearby French’s Bakery in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to create a crusty bread that wouldn’t get soggy too quickly under the butter and warm meat.
Whether the liquor vendor existed or not seems irrelevant. Lobster rolls are awesome and good news travels fast. By the 1950s, lobster rolls were being served up and down the New England coast. Legendary Boston chef Jasper White was the first to make them “upscale” in the 1980s, and in 1996 they were on the menu at the Pearl Oyster Bar in Greenwich Village, New York. Pearl’s chef Rebecca Charles is credited with introducing the lobster roll to the nation, making it a “trendy” dish beyond the Northeast Coast.
Today, two unofficial versions of the legendary seafood sandwich compete: Maine and Connecticut lobster rolls. Maine-style rolls contain cold lobster salad with mayonnaise sauce, lemon juice and seasonings. Connecticut-style lobster rolls are served warm and drizzled with butter. And a proto-Milford-style lobster roll serves them on a toasted hot dog bun.
Read the original article on Tasting Table.
