In the Palm of Your Hand

Lobster Rolls and Contradicting Performances of Regional Identity

Abstract

The Maine lobster roll survives as a reminder of the importance that lobster has had from the earliest years of settlement in the New England colonies and has become an icon for the state of Maine. The food of a culture or region represents an aspect of embodied material culture and serves as a cultural archive. Edible objects should be read as closely as other material texts. The Maine lobster roll is composed of ingredients layered with regional histories while exhibiting formal qualities appealing to American culture more broadly. The cultural scripts that accompany mobile foods like sandwiches can reveal important links between people, place, and diet. The mobility inherent in lobster rolls helps to present and define regional identity for a broader American audience in a way that familiarizes "difference" within the American nation.