Wait a Minute: Maine Was Not the Birthplace of the Lobster Roll?

A few days ago, I scrolled past a post on Facebook that caught my attention.  It was from one of my DJ friends in the New York area.  He commented that he finally had a chance to have a lobster roll in the place where they were invented.

I wondered why he had come to Maine and not said hi.

That's when I noticed where he had tagged. The place was not in Maine, it was in Connecticut!

I did not believe that the lobster roll had been invented in Connecticut, so I did some digging.  And, I was shocked by what I found on Google.

According to the Caviar Bar website, and the websites of several other eateries, the lobster roll was not invented in the State of Maine.

The first lobster roll was served in the town of Milford, Connecticut around 1929.

As the story goes, Harry Perry, the owner of Perry's Restaurant, had a regular customer who was a salesman.  The man loved lobster, but did not have time to stop to have a lobster dinner.  Time is money, after all.

So, Harry cooked him up a lobster and shelled it, according to Caviar Bar, and he then put it in a hoagie roll (normal bread would not contain the buttered lobster).  Boom!  That lobster roll was born!

Of course, here in Maine, our lobster rolls are a little different.  Ours are usually served chilled and they are mixed with mayo.

While no one knows where the first Maine-style lobster roll was served, My Live Lobster seems to indicate that started to appear in the mid-1950s.

That was when the costal Maine tourist boom really took off.

Where is your favorite place to get a lobster roll?