Lobstering in Maine & The Lobster Roll
A love-hate-love history from the cold Atlantic waters to the chilled Lobster Roll
The road trip from Boston to Portland, Maine, takes about 2 hours. To get there, you need to cross New Hampshire, a state that oddly welcomes you with a threat: “live free or die”. Though you won’t stay there long, in about 25 minutes you’ll be exiting it and crossing a much nicer sign: “Vacationland”.
Soon you get a glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean and after passing by industrial buildings you arrive to Commercial Street by the waterfront, in Portland’s centre. The red brick of the edifices contrasts with the deep blue of the waters and the white of the numerous seagulls flapping their wings around.
In 1916 writer Hildergarde Hawthorne, witnessed how in that same location dozens and dozens of lobsters were being packed into barrels that filled barges moored along the wharf. A local told her they were being sent to New York. This “burly, white-haired man, his face burned to a dark brick-red… laid a loving hand on one of the biggest” of the caught lobsters.
Nowadays Maine is the largest lobster producing state in the United States and exports its crustaceans to every corner of the country. It is also the most regulated one concerning lobster fishing, putting all their efforts into conservation. I went there to learn how.
Lobstering in Maine
In the cruise my husband Ross and I took, there were 3 more couples and then Dave, the captain, and Nick, a local boy from Cape Elizabeth that was earning some money for college educating people about fishing and the territory. We departed the pier and helmed across islands towards the different buoys that marked where the lobster traps were positioned. Lucky Catch offers educational trips around the bay but they also have a commercial fishing license, so if we were to find a lobster that met all requirements, we could keep it.
Dave stopped the vessel several times, pulling up the rope from the buoy to haul the cage up and check if there had been any luck. This was done every day on multiple times, excepts Sundays and only before 4pm on Saturdays. The most luck we got was with crabs, but we released them back to the waters. Some seagulls, seeing they could get a free dinner stuck with us all the way.
After checking if there were any lobsters trapped, the fishermen changed the bait inside the cage (saltwater fish) for fresher one and dropped it back to the sea. We did this multiple times and in two occasions, we found our praised crustacean. With excitement, Nick showed us the animal but before anyone could start bidding for it, he took a metal ruler and measured the body area, called the carapace. From the eye socket to the beginning of the tail. It measured less than 3¼ inches (7.62 cm), which is the minimum required, so despite our imploring faces, he threw it back to the water.
7 crabs later, we got another one. This time it seemed it could be just the right size, but we were left disappointed once again. It was a female that had been marked with a v-notch. This means the first time it was caught it was bearing eggs, and to prevent another fisherman from catching it, it got a v-cut in one of the tail flippers. That female got back to the sea as the previous one so it could keep on producing eggs for another two years, or as long as needed for the notch to grow out.
It normally takes a lobster 5-7 years to reach legal size. The minimum measurement was increased twice in the past decade, allowing females more time to reproduce and release eggs before possibly being caught. In Maine, and this does not apply to other states, there is also a maximum size. “If you find a Maine jumbo lobster in Las Vegas, don’t believe it!”, cautioned us Dave. Any lobster with a bigger than 5” (12.7 cm) carapace must be returned to the waters. This is the third main conservation rule, in place since 1872. A bigger lobster (called a “breeder”) will be able to produce more offspring than a smaller one. And because it’s a competitive world, it will also need bigger males, so both sexes are excluded to be caught if they are bigger than 5”.
Even with all these efforts to preserve the brood stock, Maine’s lobstering communities are suffering. Climate change, the increasing costs of doing business and new regulations aimed at preserving the endangered right whale are the cause of some new pressures. “My takeaway from the last two years of doing this work is there remains a huge amount of uncertainty about what’s happening,” said Joshua Stoll, an assistant professor in the School of Marine Sciences at the University of Maine to Rhode Island Current.
A love-hate-love history
There was a time when no conservation rules were applied and perhaps they were not even needed. Since ancient times humans have been eating lobsters, besides them looking like “giant sea insects”, as David Foster Wallace once put it, early communities already understood the nutritional value of the animal’s meat.
We have evidence (first century BC) of lobsters being praised in Pompeii as they have been found depicted on the mosaics of the city. But actually, the animal we call a lobster in Europe (or at least in Spain is known as a “langosta”) it’s actually not really closely related to the true lobster. The spiny lobsters (from the Palinuridae family) don’t have claws. Their meat is also sweet and more delicate than the so called European lobster (Homarus gammarus), in Spain known as “bogavante”. The latter is from the same family (Homarus also known as Nephrops) as the American lobster (Homarus americanus) and so they all have claws, mostly differing in the coloration, size and habitat. As is the delicious Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus), sometimes called “scampi” and in Spain known as “cigala”.
Native Americans have also been enjoying the crustacean for thousands of years. Specially around the Gulf of Maine (now the US) and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (now Canada). Shellfish and seafood were a staple before Europeans arrived to the territory and one of the most important sources of protein. Lobsters were cooked in a variety of ways: boiled, on spits, smoked, and even baked in a sandy pit on the beach. They were also added to stews, porridges and soups.
“What was the equivalent of bread and butter to native peoples got a mixed reaction from the British arriving in the New World. Fish, including lobster, wasn’t considered a substantial food, especially compared with the more desirable and nutritious meat. Seafood was boring to them and left them feeling unsatisfied. Allowing that fresh fish in British markets was often less than edible, it’s no wonder that the notion of stinking fish probably evolved into the term fishy, or something that is suspect.” Elisabeth Townsend, Lobster: A Global History
Lobsters, as happened with oysters, were plentiful in early New England. And the crustaceans were also large. Some even weighing twenty-five pounds (11.3 kg), as Puritan minister Francis Higginson reported. Though that didn’t make them more desirable in the eyes of the colonists. In 1623 Governor William Bradford in Plymouth, Massachusetts, complained that he could only offer lobsters to visitors, “without bread or anything else but…water”.
As Elisabeth Townsend explains in Lobster A Global History, “colonists often only used lobster to fend off hunger and as cheap food for indentured servants and slaves. They fed it to pigs and used it as fertiliser and fish bait”. One myth about the history of the American lobster that has been repeated constantly even by media like Tasting Table, History, Business Insider and Medium is that lobsters used to be fed to prisoners. Some even talk about laws that protected prisoners and servants from eating lobster more than three times a week. But there is no proof of that ever happening. And if we think about it, it doesn’t seem the most practical thing to do. Food historian Sandy Oliver confirmed it: “Who the hell is going to pick all the meat off the lobster to produce enough for a prison full of people?”.
The possibility of selling them for financial gain thanks to the over-abundance made the lobster less and less horrendous to the eyes of European North Americans. They started cooking it the same way they were being cooked in Europe, where their popularity was exploding: in sauces for fish, in pies, potted (cooked and preserved in butter), stewed, fricasseed and pickled. Lobster was eaten best in a prepared dish and that’s why by the early XIXth century cooks were buying boiled lobster meat to save time in the preparation of their meals. In 1833 Lydia Maria Child presented a recipe in The American Frugal Housewife of a lobster salad: the boiled meat of a full lobster served cold with lettuce and a dressing of vinegar, mustard, egg yolks, oil, salt and cayenne.
“In the mid-1700s, anyone near an urban market could buy a live three-pound (1.4 kg) lobster for about three cents, including New York. […] By 1800 New York fishermen couldn’t keep up with the demand. ´Smackmen´, who could store thousands of lobsters for several days or more, were delivering these crustaceans to new York and Boston markets in the early 1820s from southern Maine, and by the 1840s from the central Maine coast”. Elisabeth Townsend, Lobster: A Global History
By the mid XIXth century demand exploded. This was due to wealthy tourists travelling by cargo schooner to Maine to escape the city heat and discovering the abundance of fresh seafood the area had to offer. They wanted to relieve the experience back home in Boston, New York or Philadelphia, so lobsters were transported alive in vessels with water tanks in them from the northern state to the southern metropolises. A new industry was also responding to the demand: canneries. Lobster was one of the most popular food items to be canned and the new technology also helped supply meals for the soldiers of the American Civil War. By 1880, there were 23 lobster canneries in Maine.
The appeal for the crustacean only escalated from there. And recipes showed how instead of trying to disguise the meat now they exhalted it. “By the mid twentieth century, potted lobster and lobster forcemeat were things of the past. Now boiled or baked, served in Newburg sauce (the updated version of fricassee), or in a salad or chowder, lobster had assumed its modern forms”, say Keith Stavely & Kathleen Fitzgerald in their book America’s Founding Food.
The Lobster Roll
It was the salad version the preparation that gave us one of the most quintessential New England foods. The boiled lobster meat was served cold and dressed with different ingredients and prepared by homecooks and restaurants alike. It just needed to be stuffed inside a bun to become the sandwich we all love.
Professor and chef Branden Lewis told National Geographic that “English and Portuguese sailors, shipwrights, and fishermen created the earliest iteration of the lobster roll by tucking the discarded trimmings of tail and claw meat between pieces of bread.” Since the invention of the hot dog roll, perhaps by Bavarian sausage vendor Anton Feuchtwanger based in St Louis, Missouri at the beginning of the XXth century, the lobster roll was just a natural progression.
The New England bread roll is different, though. Instead of opening from the side, it has a cut on the top that divides the roll to welcome the filling. The invention was due to the first franchised restaurant chain of the United States: Howard Johnson's.
“Variously called top-sliced, top-loading, or frankfurter roll, the style was developed sometime in the mid- to late ’40s, explains Michael Cornelis, vice president of American Pan, which makes baking pans for the industry. Howard Johnson’s approached J. J. Nissen bakery of Maine to develop a special bun for its fried clam strip sandwich. The restaurant chain wanted top sliced rolls that would stand upright and be easier to prepare, serve, and eat. The fact that the flat sides naturally lent themselves to being buttered and grilled or toasted was an added bonus.” Holly Jennings, The Boston Globe
Many claim that it was Harry Perry who we should thank for the creation of the lobster roll, or at least for a version of it. He was the one who in 1929 served in his seafood sack in Milford, Connecticut, a bun with hot and buttery lobster meat in it, to please a traveling customer. This is now called the “Connecticut Lobster Roll” and it divides New Englanders for its love against the so called “Maine Lobster Roll”, served chilled.
To me, both are great. I think perhaps the cold version is more linked to the history of the ingredient as it comes from the lobster salad, and also more suitable for the hot summer months. Nowadays it’s composed by lobster meat served chilled and dressed with mayonnaise, finely diced celery, and lemon juice. Some may add chives, chervil or tarragon, as acclaimed Boston chef Jasper White does. And the bun needs to be buttered and grilled on the sides to be proper. It is also normally served alongside fries and pickles.
In fact, it was White who contributed to the boom of the sandwich. In the 1950s, lobster shacks were popping up all along the eastern seaboard, serving lobster boils, clam bakes, chowders and rolls. “But it wasn’t until the 1970s that the lobster roll made major in-roads in foodie culture. Red Eats, a famous food stand on Maine’s Route 1, helped boost the sandwiches popularity.” Says Lobster Anywhere. Jasper White made a version in the 80s that could be enjoyed at Summer Shack, his waterfront Boston restaurant, and that brought a lot of prestige to the dish.
With the increased price for lobsters due to the high demand and less abundance, and the new recipes chefs made for the roll, it became ever more desirable and popular. And in the 90s it was already positioned as an icon of New England, and even American food.
At the end of my fishing trip I left with a bag that contained a live lobster. The boat had a water tank in which several animals swam waiting for their destiny; even if we didn’t catch any legal-sized lobster, we could take one home.
Although it was not a romantic ending for the story, I wouldn’t call it cheating. Those lobsters also came from the area, only were caught on a different day. And if I cheated then, you mostly will think I also eluded the next obvious step as I didn’t cook the lobster myself.
Cooking a live lobster is not for the squeamish, even if I have seen it done multiple times in my family’s kitchens, I have never dared to do it myself. A lot of research has been done into figuring out if it’s humane to boil a lobster alive. Some think that lobsters are not complex enough to be able to feel pain, others think otherwise. To be able to eat one, you need to cook it while it still lives, though. I am not sure if the Portland Lobster Co. freeze them before introducing them in a boiling pot, as some people recommend to desensitize their nervous system. I don’t think they did with mine.
There’s where Ross and I took the bag with the moving animal in it. The restaurant was right on the same wharf from where we had departed for our trip, so it would be a quick transfer. The fee for being able to leave the bag on the counter and receive a lobster dinner some minutes later is $10. With that you don’t only pay for the traumatic task to having to kill your own food but also you receive baked potatoes, corn on the cob and slaw. It worked for me.
I struggled to get into that meat, though. While Ross enjoyed his fresh lobster roll, not even wanting to have anything to do with that animal he had carried to the seafood shack, he observed my bout against the hard shell of the crustacean with amusement. I wanted to think that it was the price I had to pay for my cowardice. And still, the lobster gifted me with a delicious feast that was even more enjoyable knowing it had been done in the most sustainable way possible. From the sea to the table (passing through the steamer).
Further reading:
FITZGERALD Kathleen, STAVELY Keith, America’s Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking (UNC Press, 2015)
TOWNSEND, Elisabeth, Lobster: A Global History (The University of Chicago Press, 2011)
FOSTER WALLACE, David, Consider the Lobster (Gourmet Magazine, 2004)
A Guide to Lobstering in Maine (Maine Department of Marine Resources, 2017)
HAYS, Brooks, Experts warn future of Maine lobstering marked by increased risks, increased corporatization (Rhode Island Current, December 19, 2023)
WHITTLE, Patrick, Maine lobster catch dips to lowest levels since 2009 (News Center Maine, March 1, 2024)
MAXWELL, Samantha, The Uncertain Future of Lobstering in Maine (Modern Farmer, January 3, 2024)
The Future of Lobster (Island Institute)
Love this deep dive, Elisabet! I actually had a friend who also just came back from a visit to Maine where she went on a lobstering boat. She lit up recounting all that she had learned about lobsters. I specifically recall that the ones served locally are often soft-shelled and sweeter because they often ship the hard-shell lobsters to be sold elsewhere — something about them preserving better. Fascinating! Maine is high on my list to visit.
Great write up! Though I'm pretty sure most New England states (at least) have maximum lobster size requirements as well (not that I've picked up that many that exceed them here in MA waters; I've certainly grabbed enough undersized ones!).
Next time you're in Portland, Eventide has my favorite lobster roll in the city (hot and buttered, which is the only way to go -- the only downside is they're disappointingly small). As you drive up, if you stop in Portsmouth, NH, Geno's has another terrific one. But my favorite lobster roll is from The Travelin' Lobster, just outside Bar Harbor, in Maine, where the jumbo roll has what I can only assume is the meat from three lobsters stuffed in it. For a whole lobster, the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound (just off Mt. Desert Island) is my go-to, but anywhere you can get them fresh is hard to go wrong!