New Hampshire joins longest lobster roll battle, P.E.I. vows to fight back

A restaurant in New Hampshire believes it's wrestled away the world's longest lobster roll title from P.E.I.

• P.E.I. sets lobster roll record, snatches title back from New Brunswick

Last September, the P.E.I. Fishermen's Association created a 36.5-metre lobster roll at the Shellfish Festival.That shattered the 23-metre record set at the Shediac Lobster Festival just two months earlier.

Now New Hampshire has joined the fray. News of the friendly rivalry between the two Maritime provinces inspired Chef James Gibney of the British Beer Company in Portsmouth to take a crack at the record.

'What's the craziest thing we could do with lobster'

"I'm looking for, you know, ideas for a lobster dishes or what's the craziest thing we could do with lobster and this thing came up," said Gibney.

"I said 'Wow, I wonder, what would it take to do this?' And so I looked at how, what they did in P.E.I., and what the fishermen did. And I said 'You know, why not? It would be a lot of fun to have a go at it.'"

Paperwork submitted

It's not official yet, but he is reporting that on Sunday his team created a 48.6 metre lobster roll ina street festival.That's just a few centimetres short of the width of an American football field.

"Once we had the mayonnaise sauce with the lemons and the hot sauce and the celery that we put in there we had a little over 200 pounds (91 kg) of the lobster salad, if you will, that we used to fill the lobster roll," said Gibney.

The roll was cut into sections and sold for charity, raising more than $3,000.

Guinness does not have a record for lobster rolls. Gibney said he has sent his paperwork to the World Record Academy, which has the P.E.I. record registered.

The P.E.I. Fishermen's Association said it plans to win the record back in September at this year's Shellfish Festival.

Organizers at the Shediac festival had planned a 150-foot (45.7-metre) roll to celebrate Canada's birthday in July. That won't be long enough for a record now, and organizers said it is too early to say what they will do now.

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