The History of the New England Lobster Bake: Fire, Salt, and Tradition

Ancient Origins: Earth Ovens and Coastal Ingenuity

The earliest known lobster bakes weren’t called that at all. Long before European settlers arrived in New England, Wampanoag and other Indigenous peoples along the Atlantic coast were cooking seafood in “earth ovens”—shallow pits lined with hot stones, layered with seaweed, and covered to steam fish, clams, corn, and roots.

This was not a special-occasion meal. It was daily life. Lobsters, back then, were plentiful, easy to catch, and considered lowly fare, often gathered from tidal pools or tossed to crops as fertilizer.