Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
Speaker 1: So I was traveling with some friends recently, and while
Speaker 1: some of us were chatting one evening, one of them
Speaker 1: mentioned that they really liked the eponymous foods episodes and
Speaker 1: they were like, it has been a minute since you
Speaker 1: did one, and I was like, okay, So here we
Speaker 1: are today. We're going to talk about sandwiches. So get
Speaker 1: ready to maybe get hungry, depending on what your feelings
Speaker 1: are right on what you like any of these sandwiches.
Speaker 1: We're covering three sandwiches. The first is one I do
Speaker 1: not like, the second sandwich I love, and the third
Speaker 1: is my favorite sandwich of all time. It goes in
Speaker 1: the Holly Fry Sandwich Hall of Fame as the best one.
Speaker 1: So we're starting with Sloppy Joe's. Those are very popular
Speaker 1: in the United States for some reason, which probably reveals
Speaker 1: my feeling about Sloppy Joe's. We share an opinion on
Speaker 1: Sloppy joe We could talk about it Friday. There are
Speaker 1: contested origin stories about this dish being invented here in
Speaker 1: the US, but one version places its origin outside the
Speaker 1: United States. This is a sandwich that, as its name suggests,
Speaker 1: is messy by nature. It typically features ground beef mixed
Speaker 1: with some kind of a tomato sauce, and then that
Speaker 1: mix is usually served on a hamburger bun. And there
Speaker 1: are lots of variations and way to improvise with this.
Speaker 2: Seasons can change up the.
Speaker 1: Flavor a lot, and some folks like to add things
Speaker 1: like onion or other minced vegetables. And three different places
Speaker 1: claim the sloppy joe as their own. There's Sioux City, Iowa,
Speaker 1: Key West, Florida, and Havana, Cuba. There's also a New
Speaker 1: Jersey honorable mention that we will talk about. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not incidentally the order we're going to talk about them in.
Speaker 1: But it makes sense that the sloppy Joe pops up
Speaker 1: in the United States in cooking in the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: because this was a time when money was very tight.
Speaker 1: As a consequence, expensive ingredients like meat had to be stretched.
Speaker 1: So meat loaf had been around since the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: but the need to find ways to make protein sources
Speaker 1: go farther in the nineteen thirties during the depression, led
Speaker 1: both restaurateurs and home cooks to get a little bit
Speaker 1: creative with ingredients mixed into meat to fillip hungry stomachs.
Speaker 1: This also harkens back to our episode on Augusta Scofie,
Speaker 1: who similarly found ways to stretch available ingredients in the
Speaker 1: field when he was an army cook and then when
Speaker 1: he was a chef during World War One and had
Speaker 1: to figure out how to run his luxury kitchen at
Speaker 1: the Savway Hotel in London without things like butter. We're
Speaker 1: going to start with the non US origin story for
Speaker 1: the Sloppy Joe, though, because it informs one of the
Speaker 1: other this starts not with a man named Joe, but
Speaker 1: rather Jose. Jose abili Otero was born in Spain in
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. He moved to Cuba in nineteen oh four
Speaker 1: and started working as a bartender in Havana. He worked
Speaker 1: there for three years and then moved to New Orleans, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: once again found.
Speaker 2: Work at a bar.
Speaker 1: Right around nineteen thirteen, he moved south again to Miami, Florida,
Speaker 1: worked in a variety of establishments until nineteen eighteen, and
Speaker 1: then back to Cuba. After working for a bar and
Speaker 1: cafe in Havana called the Greasy Spoon for a few months,
Speaker 1: Jose decided he would rather work for himself than someone else,
Speaker 1: so he bought a grocery store that also had a
Speaker 1: cafe and bar. That's a pretty standard setup, and according
Speaker 1: to Jose's accounts, when one of his friends from the
Speaker 1: US came to visit him in his new establishment, that
Speaker 1: friend said, quote, why Joe, this place is certainly sloppy.
Speaker 1: Look at the filthy water running from under the counter.
Speaker 1: And from then on he was known as Sloppy Joe.
Speaker 1: He seemed to embrace the idea of being known for
Speaker 1: having a messy business, so much so that he renamed
Speaker 1: the place Sloppy Joe's. In case you, like me, are
Speaker 1: wondering where that gross water was coming from, it was
Speaker 1: melting ice. Jose served a variety of seafood items in
Speaker 1: his grocery. He had fresh seafood set out on ice,
Speaker 1: and as that seafood ice melted, it slushed to the
Speaker 1: floor and made kind of a mess. In nineteen thirty two,
Speaker 1: the Havana Sloppy Joe's Bar released a cocktails manual so
Speaker 1: that people could make the drinks from their cocktail menu
Speaker 1: at home, and in that manual there is a brief
Speaker 1: biography of Jose Abielioterro, who is shown in a photograph
Speaker 1: portrait at the front of the book with the nickname
Speaker 1: Sloppy Joe written under it. In the years of operation
Speaker 1: of Sloppy Joe's, Jose added a lot of touches to
Speaker 1: the place, including famously a sixty foot long bar. Early
Speaker 1: in the Sloppy Joe establishment's history there was a sand
Speaker 1: which called a Sloppy Joe on the menu, and this
Speaker 1: was apparently a carry around version of either roba vieha
Speaker 1: or piccadillo. Rope a vieha is made with shredded meats, tomato, sauce,
Speaker 1: and various spices. Usually this is something you would eat
Speaker 1: with a fork, but Jose put it on bread. Piccadillo
Speaker 1: is a similar dish made with a ground beef, although
Speaker 1: it often has a lot of other ingredients, but if
Speaker 1: you put it on bread or a bun, does kind
Speaker 1: of sound like the Sloppy Joe sandwich. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people from the US started visiting Havana during prohibition
Speaker 1: so they could get a drink and enjoy the climate,
Speaker 1: and there were often celebrities lined up along that sixty
Speaker 1: foot bar. One famous figure who loved Sloppy Joe's Bar
Speaker 1: and sandwich was Ernest Hemingway, so much so that he
Speaker 1: figured into the Key West version of the sandwich origin story.
Speaker 1: When Hemingway was in Key West he lived there for
Speaker 1: I think a dozen years, he convinced another bar, the
Speaker 1: Silver Slipper, to rename itself Sloppy Joe's and put the
Speaker 1: sandwich on the menu. The Silver Slipper was owned by
Speaker 1: a man named Joe Russell, so the name Sloppy Joe
Speaker 1: kind of fit again for someone who is cool with
Speaker 1: being called sloppy, and he went for the idea. Joe
Speaker 1: Russell had also been to Havana with Hemingway on a
Speaker 1: number of trips, so it wasn't as though the author
Speaker 1: had to explain to Joe Russell who Sloppy Joe was
Speaker 1: or what a Sloppy Joe's Sandwich was. Russell seems to
Speaker 1: have pretty readily understood the appeal of both of these things,
Speaker 1: and that informed his decision to change his establishment's name.
Speaker 1: The Key West Sloppy Joe's did not really claim to
Speaker 1: have invented the sandwich exactly. It still acknowledged the Cuban origins,
Speaker 1: but it did claim to have perfected it, inventing the
Speaker 1: American version. You can find out for yourself if you're
Speaker 1: ever in the area, because it is still open and
Speaker 1: the sloppy Joe sandwich is still on the menu, so
Speaker 1: you can decide if you think that's perfect or not.
Speaker 1: The third contender for the invention of the sloppy Joe
Speaker 1: is a diner cook named Joe. This is the version
Speaker 1: that's associated with Sioux City, Iowa, at the Old Tavern Inn.
Speaker 1: This version has roots in another Midwest sandwich called the
Speaker 1: loose meat sandwich. And this is kind of like a
Speaker 1: burger in that it's made with ground beef or chopped meat,
Speaker 1: but it's not formed into a patty.
Speaker 2: And the cook named Joe. None of the Sioux.
Speaker 1: City stories that Holly found included a last name, added tomato, sauce,
Speaker 1: and some spices, and in what sometimes gets called a
Speaker 1: tavern sandwich. Joe's creation became very popular with locals and
Speaker 1: its reputation spread. Yeah, there are still places that will
Speaker 1: call a sloppy Joe a tavern sandwich.
Speaker 2: In the Midwest.
Speaker 1: So the location that we're going to offer as an
Speaker 1: honorable mention in this is town Hall Deli in Maplewood,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Apparently in the nineteen thirties, the mayor of
Speaker 1: Maplewood visited the Havana Sloppy Joe's and had the sandwich
Speaker 1: there and then asked the owner of the town Hall
Speaker 1: Deli to make it based on his description. That version,
Speaker 1: according to the Townhall Deli website, featured quote coleslaw ham
Speaker 1: cow tongue, Swiss cheese with lots of dressing, and was
Speaker 1: served on thin rye bread. That doesn't really sound very
Speaker 1: much like a Sloppy Joe or Ropa vieha or piccadillo.
Speaker 1: Town Hall Deli still exists. It has a variety of
Speaker 1: what they call Sloppy Jo's on the menu, although to
Speaker 1: me they all sounded more like sliced meat deli sandwiches
Speaker 1: than a sauteed ground meat cooked with a tomato sauce.
Speaker 1: So which of these stories is the real one? Maybe
Speaker 1: all of them. It's completely possible that different people had
Speaker 1: a similar idea around the same time, And there's also
Speaker 1: a secondary aspect of the Sloppy Joe story and that's
Speaker 1: the idea of canned sauce and convenience foods. For a
Speaker 1: lot of home cooks in the post World War two
Speaker 1: United States, products like Sloppy Jo sauce offered a shortcut
Speaker 1: to making tomato sauce from scratch, while also being malleable
Speaker 1: enough to doctor up into a more unique recipe. ConAgra
Speaker 1: Foods and Hunts introduced the Manwich canned Sloppy Jo sauce
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine. It's pretty easy to find write
Speaker 1: ups of papers in the nineteen seventies about how home
Speaker 1: cooks might use sloppy Jo sauce. One from the Sacramento
Speaker 1: Bee that ran on December sixteenth, nineteen seventy reads and
Speaker 1: our apologies here to Italian listeners quote. A passport is
Speaker 1: not needed to bring a profusion of Italian inspired foods
Speaker 1: to your family table. A ready assistant is the new
Speaker 1: canned Sloppy Jo pizza, sauce and beef, which lends itself
Speaker 1: easily to spooning on burger buns, topping spaghetti, or making
Speaker 1: a fast version of lasagna. The write up goes on
Speaker 1: to share a recipe called Presto Lasagna was made with
Speaker 1: sloppy jo sauce and cottage cheese. I have feelings schools
Speaker 1: have often included Sloppy Joe's in cafeterias for the reason
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier. It's cost effective and it enables kitchens
Speaker 1: to serve more meals with less meat. I also read
Speaker 1: one note where someone had interviewed someone who was in
Speaker 1: charge of decisions, such as, you know what gets served
Speaker 1: in a school cafeteria, and she was like, we also
Speaker 1: sneak vegetables in there, and the kids don't know, which
Speaker 1: I think a lot of parents do as well, So
Speaker 1: perhaps the nostalgia of meals like this eton as a
Speaker 1: kid has contributed to the survival of the.
Speaker 2: Sloppy Joe over the decades.
Speaker 1: The Havana Slappy Joe's Bar closed in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: during the Castro regime, but in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: the Office of the Historian of Havana started a restoration
Speaker 1: of this fabled watering hole as part of a larger
Speaker 1: effort to restore Havana's old city, and after six years
Speaker 1: of work, it reopened in twenty thirteen.
Speaker 2: Now you can visit if you are in.
Speaker 1: Cuba, and I will talk about it on the behind
Speaker 1: the scenes because I have some quizzical dog question marks
Speaker 1: about reviews of it. We are coming up on National
Speaker 1: Sloppy Joe Day. If you're in the US, it's March eighteen,
Speaker 1: So if you love them, go ahead and start making
Speaker 1: your plans. In the meantime, we're gonna pause for a
Speaker 1: sponsor break, and when we're back, we will talk about
Speaker 1: a sandwich with a Kentucky origin story. If you have
Speaker 1: never had a sandwich called a hot brown, you are
Speaker 1: in for a rich savor retreat. It's an open faced
Speaker 1: sandwich that's piled with roast turkey, bacon, pimentos or tomatoes,
Speaker 1: and mornaise sauce. Mornaise sauce is our good friend beschamel,
Speaker 1: but with Parmesan, romano or greere cheese added to it,
Speaker 1: or sometimes combinations of those cheeses. Occasionally you might find
Speaker 1: other cheeses blended in, depending on who makes it. And
Speaker 1: once that sauce has spread a across the top of
Speaker 1: the sandwich, the whole thing is broiled so the cheese
Speaker 1: gets bubbly, and then it served.
Speaker 2: As the name.
Speaker 1: Indicates, hot, it is sometimes described as similar to Welsh
Speaker 1: rare bit, although the main similarity is really just that
Speaker 1: it's open faced and broiled, because there isn't a whole
Speaker 1: lot of overlapping ingredients. Beyond that, the cheeses are different.
Speaker 1: The hot Brown is named for the hotel where it
Speaker 1: was invented, which was named for the businessman who built it.
Speaker 1: That's James Graham Brown. Brown was born in eighteen eighty
Speaker 1: one in Madison, Indiana. He attended public school, then went
Speaker 1: to Hanover College and Purdue University. The Brown family moved
Speaker 1: to Kentucky in nineteen oh three, and as a young man,
Speaker 1: Brown went to work with his father in the lumber business.
Speaker 1: Their eastern Kentucky operation grew over time, and at thirty seven,
Speaker 1: Brown became the president of W. P. Brown and Sons
Speaker 1: Lumber Company. Lumber was not the only business that Brown
Speaker 1: worked in, and over the years he became one of
Speaker 1: lieu of the Kentucky's most prominent businessmen, particularly through the
Speaker 1: many construction projects named for him. In nineteen twenty three,
Speaker 1: he built the Brown Hotel over the course of ten
Speaker 1: months at a cost of four million dollars on the
Speaker 1: corner of Fourth and Broadway. He was inspired in this
Speaker 1: project by another Louisville hotel's success that was the Seal Box,
Speaker 1: and Brown thought he could challenge the Sealbox dominance as
Speaker 1: the luxury o hotel of downtown, and he was right.
Speaker 1: The style of the Brown Hotel is Georgian revival. It
Speaker 1: had sixteen floors and it opened on October twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was
Speaker 1: the first person to sign the guest register. The Brown
Speaker 1: Hotel quickly became the center of Louisville's social and cultural scene,
Speaker 1: and Jay Graham Brown expanded his downtown presence by also
Speaker 1: building a theater nearby. Eventually they also erected a medical
Speaker 1: facility and an office building and a church. Since Brown
Speaker 1: lived in the hotel, he'd essentially built everything that he
Speaker 1: could need within walking distance. At night, in the hotel ballroom,
Speaker 1: a band would play dinner dances from ten pm to
Speaker 1: one am for the late night crowd, and often there
Speaker 1: were more than one thousand people there on any givena evening.
Speaker 1: This also is where the hot Brown was born. So
Speaker 1: after the late night dancers had been entertained for a
Speaker 1: couple of hours, the band would take a break, typically
Speaker 1: right around midnight, and The hotel restaurants also stayed open late,
Speaker 1: so the party crowd would saunter into those to order
Speaker 1: a snack before the last set of the evening was played.
Speaker 1: This was a very popular cycle of entertainment, and it
Speaker 1: brought the hotel a lot of business in food sales
Speaker 1: for a while. After a few years, the sameness of
Speaker 1: the way the dance evenings that the Brown Hotel played
Speaker 1: out left the city's nightlighte a little boared, so business
Speaker 1: started to wane.
Speaker 2: There were a couple of versions of how the hot Brown.
Speaker 1: Sandwich was invented in this moment of lag in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty six and what led to its creation. One is
Speaker 1: that there was concern about guests having grown tired of
Speaker 1: the menu, so the need was seen for something new.
Speaker 1: Another is that the executive chef, Fred Schmidt, was just
Speaker 1: tired of sending out plates of club sandwiches and scrambled
Speaker 1: eggs and ham to his late night diners and wanted
Speaker 1: to make something new. Seems possible or even likely that
Speaker 1: both of these were factors.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you read accounts by people that were involved in
Speaker 1: the whole thing, some of them put it one way
Speaker 1: and some put it the other.
Speaker 2: And I think probably both are the case.
Speaker 1: The choices of ingredients for the sandwich were informed, according
Speaker 1: to legend, by time of year. It was winter, which
Speaker 1: meant that the hotel had turkey on hand because of
Speaker 1: holiday celebrations. It's said that putting it on sandwiches was
Speaker 1: kind of a novel idea, as the poultry was normally
Speaker 1: reserved for more formal holiday meals. Rudy Suck, who managed
Speaker 1: the Brown Hotel during the time the Hot Brown was invented,
Speaker 1: told the story as a somewhat collaborative effort, noting that
Speaker 1: he thought the initial plan sounded quote a little flat,
Speaker 1: before Chef Schmidt said that he would put it under
Speaker 1: the broiler to bubble the.
Speaker 2: Cheese in the sauce.
Speaker 1: The mader D's initial reaction to a stack of turkey
Speaker 1: on bread with a white sauce was that it needed
Speaker 1: a little color. To add that splash of color, the
Speaker 1: bacon and pimentoes were added, although over time the hotel's
Speaker 1: version shifted away from pimentoes to tomatoes. The dish quickly
Speaker 1: became popular. It's remained a staple of Louisville and the
Speaker 1: Brown Hotel, with a few gaps that we will talk
Speaker 1: about for a century. James Graham Brown died in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, and his legacy is a little bit of
Speaker 1: a mixed bag. He was documented as being very anti
Speaker 1: union and pretty racist. He did, not, for example, want
Speaker 1: Kentucky to segregate, and he publicly stated that if a
Speaker 1: union were to form at his hotel, he would sell
Speaker 1: the whole thing. He also, though, gave generously to charity,
Speaker 1: and when he died with no next of kin, after
Speaker 1: having lived for decades in a small suite at the hotel,
Speaker 1: he left his one hundred million dollar estate to the
Speaker 1: people of the city, having arranged for numerous charities and
Speaker 1: public works projects to be funded long term from his fortune,
Speaker 1: with the wording of his will indicating that the money
Speaker 1: was to be used to promote the well being of
Speaker 1: the citizens and bring recognition to both Louisville and the
Speaker 1: rest of the state. His foundation is still in operation.
Speaker 1: It uses funds to invest in a variety of organizations
Speaker 1: to promote economic prosperity, education, and quality of life. After
Speaker 1: Brown's death, the hotel that had become a foundation of
Speaker 1: the downtown scene of the city faltered. It ultimately closed
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two and was sold to the Jefferson
Speaker 1: County Public School System, which used it as an office
Speaker 1: space for the Bard of Education until it was purchased, refurbished,
Speaker 1: and reopened as a Hilton hotel in nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 1: Then it passed to the Camberly Hotel Company. Today, it's
Speaker 1: managed by the eighteen fifty nine Historic Hotels Group, and
Speaker 1: it's on the National Register of Historic Places. The Brown
Speaker 1: Hotel today will happily serve you a hot brown almost
Speaker 1: anywhere on the premises. The hotel, restaurants and bar have
Speaker 1: it on the menu. You can have one brought to
Speaker 1: you via room service. If you don't eat meat, there
Speaker 1: is a vegetarian version available. I think it uses mushrooms
Speaker 1: as well as a smaller sized version of the original
Speaker 1: for anybody who finds the rich dish too filling to
Speaker 1: eat a full size order. The Brown Hotel says that
Speaker 1: typically they sell about a thousand hot browns each week,
Speaker 1: although during the Kentucky Derby it is usually more like
Speaker 1: three hundred each day and sometimes even higher. The hotel
Speaker 1: also shares its recipe for the original hot brown on
Speaker 1: its website, revealing that the more NAIs sauce served there
Speaker 1: does not include greere, or at least it seems that way.
Speaker 1: The actual mornaise sauce recipe used in the kitchen of
Speaker 1: the brown remains a secret. The official recipe does also
Speaker 1: call for the crust to be cut off of the toast. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: there are other sandwiches that are very similar to the
Speaker 1: Hot Brown, particularly a Saint Louis dish called a Prosperity sandwich.
Speaker 1: The Prosperity is almost identical but adds ham. It's also
Speaker 1: popped up in the nineteen twenties. Yeah, it's believed that
Speaker 1: this is definitely a take on the Hot Brown.
Speaker 2: Nobody thinks that Saint Louis invented it.
Speaker 1: And also, as a coda here, we mentioned two sauces
Speaker 1: in this discussion that also qualify as eponymous food. So
Speaker 1: we'll give you very brief explainers for these. First off, Bechamel.
Speaker 1: It is named for Louis de Bechamel, Marquis de Montell,
Speaker 1: who was the matra of the Duke d'Orleans in the
Speaker 1: seventeenth century. He's believed to have had a hand in
Speaker 1: its creation, or more specifically, altering and existing cream sauce recipe.
Speaker 1: But that is argued by aficionados of Italian cooking history
Speaker 1: because bechamel is the same thing as a Tuscan sauce
Speaker 1: that preceded it, known as salsa koya, which is glue sauce.
Speaker 1: The Italian origin story credits Catherine de Medici with bringing
Speaker 1: the recipe to France. The other sauce we mentioned was Mournee,
Speaker 1: which uses bechamel as a base. Morne sauce has uncertainty
Speaker 1: regarding its naming attribution. It's usually noted as having been
Speaker 1: named after Philippe, the Duke de Mournai, but that has
Speaker 1: been argued because he died in the sixteen hundreds, which
Speaker 1: was long before Mornai sauce showed up in the early
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, so it's possible that this was named for
Speaker 1: someone else. There are a number of possible mornaise no
Speaker 1: evidence that they specifically inspired the sauce. Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: definitely people where someone goes, hey, this is a Mornee
Speaker 1: that was a fairly prominent person at the time this
Speaker 1: sauce pops up, but there's never really a clear indicator
Speaker 1: that they had any involvement in it. It is almost
Speaker 1: time for my favorite sandwich segment, but first, we are
Speaker 1: going to hear from some of the sponsors that keep
Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class going. All right, it's
Speaker 1: time for a contentious one and the most delicious one.
Speaker 1: The origin of this is either New York or Nebraska,
Speaker 1: and either way, the ruben is made with corned beef,
Speaker 1: souer kraut, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing on rye bread.
Speaker 1: It's usually pressed or grilled. It is a poem of
Speaker 1: sandwich perfection. In my book, I love this sandwich so
Speaker 1: much so. The first contender that we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about as the origin is Ruben's Restaurant and Delicatessen in
Speaker 1: New York, which was opened by a man named Arnold Ruben.
Speaker 1: Arnold was of German Jewish ancestry. He was born in
Speaker 1: Germany in eighteen eighty five. Teen thirties, the US Works
Speaker 1: Progress Administration launched the Federal Writers Project, Folklore Project Life Histories,
Speaker 1: and from nineteen thirty six to nineteen thirty nine they
Speaker 1: collected stories for people about their lives. Arnold Ruben gave
Speaker 1: his story on December eighteenth, nineteen thirty eight. Arnold Manoff
Speaker 1: conducted the interview and also provided additional text that contextualizes
Speaker 1: who the interviewee is. Manoff's description of the restaurant reads
Speaker 1: as follows quote. The restaurant can be briefly described as
Speaker 1: an interior near Fifth Avenue designed to resemble the lounge
Speaker 1: room of the Radio City Music Hall. Soft light, subdued lighting,
Speaker 1: rich carpeting, and mister Ruben's stuffed fish mounted around the walls,
Speaker 1: a small bar near the checkroom, and a delicatess encounter
Speaker 1: in the back. More detailed, this is the impression you
Speaker 1: get of Rubens. You're walking up fifty eighth Street toward
Speaker 1: Fifth Avenue. Suddenly the wall of ricktier left is ended,
Speaker 1: and the periphery of your eye catches a huge pane
Speaker 1: of glass curtained in cream folds and shrubberied formally. At
Speaker 1: the bottom, a red blazing neon sprawls over the window.
Speaker 1: Rubens typical. This is Rubens. Who is Ruben? That his
Speaker 1: name should stand alone, without a word of explanation, without
Speaker 1: even a first name, without a company or ink after it. Well,
Speaker 1: all right, Ruben, twenty five feet long, five feet high,
Speaker 1: on fifty eighth Street, right next to the Savoy Plaza,
Speaker 1: the Sherry Netherland nearby Central Park, the Old Plaza Fifth
Speaker 1: Avenue nearby Park Avenue a ritzy restaurant if you judge
Speaker 1: by what you can't see from the outside. The form
Speaker 1: that manaf filled out lists under Ruben's special skills and interests,
Speaker 1: and this charmed me to pieces quote special skill at
Speaker 1: concocting sandwiches, interested in fishing. The form also described our
Speaker 1: as healthy and alive in the Broadway nervous tempo manner.
Speaker 1: Arnold's statements and man Off talks about how he got
Speaker 1: started as a peddler as a kid and eventually became
Speaker 1: the father of the sandwich. He described the origin of
Speaker 1: the sandwich quote, Well, I'll tell you about how I
Speaker 1: got the sandwich idea. I owned a delicatessen on Broadway,
Speaker 1: and one day a dame walks in, one of the
Speaker 1: theatrical dames, and she's down and out, I suppose, and
Speaker 1: she asked me for something to eat. Her name was
Speaker 1: Anna Silos. Well, I'm feeling sort of good, so I
Speaker 1: figure I'll clown around for the dame. That's how it
Speaker 1: all came about. I'm clouning for the dame. Well what
Speaker 1: do I do? I take a holy bread that I
Speaker 1: used to keep and grab the knife and you know,
Speaker 1: clouding like, I cut it right through the bias. Then
Speaker 1: I take some roast beef. I don't remember exactly what,
Speaker 1: but anyway, I figure i'll put anything on. So I
Speaker 1: take some meat and cheese and I slap it on.
Speaker 1: I put some spice and stuff, and I make her
Speaker 1: up a sandwich. It was a foot high. Well, the
Speaker 1: Dame just eats it, that's all. She must have been
Speaker 1: plenty hungry. And when she gets through, she says, mister Ruben,
Speaker 1: that's the best sandwich I ever tasted in my life. Well,
Speaker 1: the idea comes to me in a flash. I'll call
Speaker 1: it the Anna Cilos Sandwich after the Dame. Then one
Speaker 1: night she brings some friends up, you know, stage people
Speaker 1: in a newspaper man and this guy he goes right
Speaker 1: behind the counter and makes himself up a sandwich. And
Speaker 1: then he tells me, why don't I call the sandwich
Speaker 1: after celebrities, like what happened with Anna Silos. Why don't
Speaker 1: I call it the Ana Cilo Sandwich. Well, boys, in
Speaker 1: a flash, I get the idea in a Silos, I'll
Speaker 1: call it a Ruben special. And that's how it started.
Speaker 1: Bless Tracy for reading that long quote I included for
Speaker 1: a nineteen eighty five book called Craig Clayborns The New
Speaker 1: York Times Food Encyclopedia. Arnold Ruben's daughter, Patricia B. Taylor
Speaker 1: gave the following quote describing the sandwich's origin. It has
Speaker 1: some subtle differences to your father's worship. It's us a
Speaker 1: little shorter, she said.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: The year was nineteen fourteen. Late one evening, a leading
Speaker 1: lady of actor Charlie Chaplin came into the restaurant and said, Ruben,
Speaker 1: make me a sandwich. Make it a combination. I'm so
Speaker 1: hungry I could eat a brick. He took a loaf
Speaker 1: of rye bread, cut two slices on the bias, and
Speaker 1: stacked one piece with slice Virginia ham roast, turkey and
Speaker 1: imported Swiss cheese, topped off with coleslaw and lots of
Speaker 1: Ruben's special Russian dressing and the second slice of bread.
Speaker 1: He served it to the lady, who said, Gee, Ruben,
Speaker 1: this is the best sandwich I ever ate. You ought
Speaker 1: to call it the Annette Seloast Special, to which he replied, like,
Speaker 1: hell I will, I'll call it a Ruben Special, though
Speaker 1: Arnold Reuben was very confident that he invented the Ruben sandwich.
Speaker 1: There's another contender which also has a good story, and
Speaker 1: that is Bernard Shimmel. This version is championed by Shemmel's granddaughter,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Wheel, who first shared her family's story of the
Speaker 1: sandwich in the New York Times magazine. According to her,
Speaker 1: her great her grandfather was a hotelier who opened hotels
Speaker 1: along the railroad lines starting in Chicago and running west,
Speaker 1: and her grandfather, Bernard, was also in the family business.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen twenties, Bernard often played poker with his
Speaker 1: friends at the family's Blackstone Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska, and
Speaker 1: one night one of the players wanted a sandwich. That
Speaker 1: player was Ruben Koulakowski, and he asked for a sandwich
Speaker 1: specifically with corned beef and sour kraut, though Shimmel dressed
Speaker 1: it up with Swiss cheese and dressing, which is arguably
Speaker 1: what makes a Ruben Ruben. Sometimes, Ruben Koulakowski is given
Speaker 1: credit for creating it, and that has also been complicated
Speaker 1: over the years because Ruben's last name has sometimes been
Speaker 1: shortened to k Kay in various retellings because the resulting sandwich,
Speaker 1: though regardless, turned out so delicious Shimmel put it on
Speaker 1: the menu at all of the family's hotels.
Speaker 2: Now this has led to impassioned debate.
Speaker 1: The Ruben is to some a quintessential New York sandwich,
Speaker 1: and Arnold Ruben's family story is that he invented it
Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen. There's no supporting evidence for that. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, there are print menus and newspaper mentions
Speaker 1: of the Shemel origin, but the earliest one is from
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty four on a menu from the Blackstone. This
Speaker 1: is later than the New York version is said to
Speaker 1: have been created, but it's the oldest primary source specifically
Speaker 1: naming the sandwich still. Even the Ruben family's earlier story
Speaker 1: describes as sandwich that has ham turkey and coleslaw on it,
Speaker 1: which is not exactly the Ruben sandwich as it's known today.
Speaker 1: Either way, it's the Shimmel Hotel group that won acclaim
Speaker 1: for the sandwich in nineteen fifty six, because that year
Speaker 1: it was entered into the National Sandwich Idea contest by
Speaker 1: a chef from one of the Shimel hotels, and it
Speaker 1: won and it got written up in a lot of papers,
Speaker 1: and it got to push into the national spot light
Speaker 1: and it has been popular ever since across the country
Speaker 1: and in my tummy. I love these episodes because I
Speaker 1: have a lot to.
Speaker 2: Talk about these saints, but.
Speaker 1: Also because I got to talk about my favorite sandwich.
Speaker 2: Listen, We'll eat a rubin any day of the week, Okay.
Speaker 1: And now I have listener mate, which is also another
Speaker 1: one about one of my favorite episodes, which is Advent Calendars.
Speaker 1: This is from our listener Amy, who writes, Hi, Holly
Speaker 1: and Tracy, I know you said you wanted to hear
Speaker 1: about all the Advent calendars.
Speaker 2: That is correct.
Speaker 1: This past year I got my kiddo one from the
Speaker 1: Exit Game company. They generally make games that you do
Speaker 1: all in one sitting, and they take a long time.
Speaker 1: We both have a hard time getting through that. But
Speaker 1: the Advent Calendar had one puzzle a day and all
Speaker 1: were tied into a larger storyline. There are multiple options,
Speaker 1: and she wants to get one every year now she's fourteen.
Speaker 1: So for anyone with a teen it's a super fun
Speaker 1: way to bond and make time to be together every day.
Speaker 1: They're not easy either. You definitely need the teamwork. Here
Speaker 1: is a photo of it. Also, I don't really have
Speaker 1: a pet, but here are some gorgeous cardinals I saw
Speaker 1: in Hawaii. I think they are called red crested cardinals.
Speaker 1: Chow and thanks for a fabulous podcast, Amy. This is
Speaker 1: such a cool idea and when I had never heard of.
Speaker 1: I feel like for people who love puzzle solving, this
Speaker 1: is a really, really great one. And I do like
Speaker 1: the idea that you bake in some family time during
Speaker 1: the holidays when it's busy and it's hard to stop
Speaker 1: sometimes and take a moment. These cardinals are beautiful.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 1: I'm a crazy bird lady at this stage in my life.
Speaker 1: I feed the birds and watch them on my deck
Speaker 1: for hours. So I am very happy for cardinal pictures.
Speaker 1: And these are very beautiful. They don't look like the
Speaker 1: ones that we would see in the continental US that
Speaker 1: are solid red. They are kind of a gray and
Speaker 1: black with white chests, and then their head is a
Speaker 1: spectacle killer shade of red. They're very beautiful, So thank you.
Speaker 1: I'll take wildlife pictures as much as i'll take a pet.
Speaker 1: If you would like to share your stories of wildlife pets.
Speaker 1: Games Admin calendars, sandwiches. I hope we get a lot
Speaker 1: of things about people's favorite sandwiches. You could do that
Speaker 1: at history podcast atiheartradio dot com. You can also find
Speaker 1: us on social media as missed in History And if
Speaker 1: you have not yet subscribed to the podcast, that is
Speaker 1: so easy to do. You can do it on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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