As part of the Prince Edward Island International Shellfish Festival last weekend, the fisherman’s association there took on a daunting task: making a giant sandwich.
The front page of The Guardian circulating throughout Prince Edward Island.
A lobster roll to be specific, and they sure did succeed. The final product measured in at 79 feet and 1 inch long and the chefs and volunteers (needed to carry the enormous bun around) celebrated their giant lunch, which reportedly fed about 300 people.
The roll also was made with 75 pounds of lobster donated by the fishermen’s association, as well as over five gallons of mayonnaise, 24 lemons and five pounds of red onion. It was prepared by three chefs: Charlottetown’s Ross Munro, Food Network Canada’s Lynn Crawford and Matt Nolot from Indiana.
“Partying, shucking and shellfish. It’s great,” said Munro in an interview with the Guardian. “I’m very happy, it’s always fun to bring something different to the Island.”
Some organizers thought the roll was long enough to earn the Guinness world record. But before the stamp of approval could be made, their story circulated online and in Canadian newspapers.
Fishermen in Shediac, New Brunswick, who held the record with a 72-foot-4-inch lobster roll in 2014, took issue with the record-breaking claim.
Measuring the 85-foot 6-inch roll made during Shediac's Lobster Festival. Shediac Chamber of Commerce photo.While it didn’t hit the newsstands as hard, a behemoth of a roll was made during Shediac’s Lobster Festival in July of this year at 85 feet 6 inches. That’s a whole 6 feet longer than the Prince Edward Island sandwich.
While the battle for longest sandwich might be stirring up some bad blood between lobster lovers, leaders in the community are having fun with it.
“I am happy to see a rivalry between two maritime communities,” Pierre Cormier, president of the Chamber of Commerce in Shediac, told CBC News.
In the end, neither town is getting in the record books just yet, at least not the Guinness Book of World Records. That organization doesn’t have a lobster-specific sandwich record. And the longest sandwich on record — at 2,411 feet 5 inches long — was made by a group in Lebanon in 2011.
So North America has a long way to go if we want to be known for oversized sandwiches.
And if you think all this talk about giant lobster rolls is a tad ridiculous, stay out of the serving line when one of these towns cooks up something special again next year.
