How the Hot Dog Found Its Bun

by Josh Chetwynd

  Despite all his achievements, di Lelio decided to hang up his utensils in 1943, selling the restaurant, his recipes, and even his guest signature books and photos of famous patrons. (He did keep his gold fork and spoon, though.) Di Lelio apparently grew frustrated with food shortages brought on by World War II. Nevertheless, his heart must have still been in his artery-clogging dish because in 1950, spurred by some backers, di Lelio agreed to come out of retirement, opening a new restaurant in another part of Rome.

  Both di Lelio’s old restaurant, situated near the famous Piazza Navona, and his new one, located near Emperor Augustus’s mausoleum, confusingly used the name Alfredo. But does it matter? They each served (and continue to serve today) the delectable dish made from the original recipe. One British patron visiting war-torn Rome just after World War II put it best after having a mouthwatering plate of fettuccine Alfredo. Shocked by its quality and decadence, he asked his companion, “Look here, old chap, who has really won the war?”

  Filet-O-Fish: Religious rules

  Do you ever wonder why a burger joint like McDonald’s went into the fish business? Credit goes to the good churchgoing folk of Ohio.

  The Filet-O-Fish was the brainchild of one of the company’s early franchisees, Lou Groen. In 1958, after working in his father-in-law’s restaurant, the Cincinnati native decided he wanted to start his own establishment. He’d seen ads for two chains: one for McDonald’s with its fifteen-cent hamburgers and the other for a company called Beverly Osborne Chicken Delight. He told his wife that whichever they chose, the pair would be stuck eating a lot of that type of food. Groen then asked which one they should go for. She went with the burgers.

  Although Groen would own forty-three McDonald’s in the Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati area by the end of his career, the early days were tough going. It was just Groen, his wife, and a guy named George cleaning, cooking, and serving at that first shop. When it came to sales, there was also one standout glitch: Those savory all-beef patties were surprisingly unpopular on Fridays. Sadly, they were only bringing in a minuscule seventy-five dollars each Friday. Groen needed to think of something fast.

  In the days before market research, Groen had the bright idea to go to the closest restaurant doing excellent Friday business to figure out what he was missing. So he headed over to Frisch’s, which was the local Big Boy chain, and spied on the customers. He immediately noticed a trend. Instead of burgers or steak or chicken, patrons were buying fish dishes.

  He now understood the situation. His area of Cincinnati was about 87 percent Catholic and, along with abstaining from meat during the forty days of Lent, many devotees also avoided it on Fridays. Groen decided he needed a fish sandwich. He came up with a special batter and a tartar sauce condiment and went to the company’s famed owner, Ray Kroc, to get sign-off on his new creation.

  Proving that even visionaries strike out sometimes, Kroc wasn’t sold. He told Groen he had a nonmeat idea of his own. He called it the Hula Burger, but there was nothing festive about it. The sandwich was simply a cold bun with a pineapple in the middle. Groen knew better than to argue with the boss. Still, he was able to get one concession.

  “Ray said to me, ‘Well, Lou, I’m going to put your fish sandwich on [a menu] for a Friday. But I’m going to put my special sandwich on too—whichever sells most, that’s the one we’ll go with,’ ” Groen told the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2007. “Friday came and the word came out. I won hands down. I sold 350 fish sandwiches that day. Ray never did tell me how his sandwich did.”

  Despite the victory, McDonald’s forced some modifications to the newly dubbed Filet-O-Fish. The company wanted the sandwich to sell for twenty-five cents, but Groen’s prototype, which featured halibut, was going to cost thirty cents to make. Four-and-a-half decades after the sandwich debuted in 1962 Groen still insisted that halibut was the way to go. Nevertheless, he agreed to switch to Atlantic cod. It was a move that turned out not to hurt business too much.

  “My fish sandwich was the first addition ever to McDonald’s original menu,” he said. “It saved my franchise.”

  It also went on to be a popular choice for all types of patrons, including Jews and Muslims who face dietary restrictions of their own. Still, Catholics remain a key reason for its success. One survey found that even today 23 percent of Filet-O-Fish sandwiches are sold during Lent.

  French Dip Sandwich: Extra sauce

  Here’s what we know about the French dip sandwich (besides it being an absolutely tasty gravy-soaked French-roll-and-meat mouthful): It was invented in Los Angeles during the first two decades of the twentieth century and no individual chef or restaurant owner takes any credit for coming up with the idea. After that, the truth behind the dish creator debate depends on whether you believe the proprietors of two different famed Los Angeles restaurants—Philippe The Original (formerly known as Philippe’s) or Cole’s.

  Philippe’s claim involves a few different stories. The restaurant’s original owner, Philippe Mathieu, relayed the tale to the Los Angeles Times this way in 1951: “One day a customer saw some gravy in the bottom of a large pan of roast meat. He asked me if I would mind dipping one side of the French roll in that gravy. I did, and right away five or six others wanted the same.” After quickly running out of gravy, he came ready the next day, but found that the high demand even outpaced the extra supply of juice that he had prepared. After that, the sandwich became a staple.

  The restaurant’s own website has a small twist on the story. It pinpoints the invention to a 1918 miscue on the part of Mathieu. “Mathieu inadvertently dropped the sliced French roll into the roasting pan filled with juice still hot from the oven,” the website claims. “The patron, a policeman, would take the sandwich anyway and returned the next day with some friends asking for more dipped sandwiches.”

  A third explanation, courtesy of a 2008 San Gabriel Tribune article, suggests that Mathieu used the gravy to soften a stale roll after a fireman complained. (For some reason men in uniform figure prominently in these stories.)

  Not to be outdone, Cole’s has its own lore. According to its owners in a 2009 Los Angeles Times story, the dish was created in 1908 when a customer with sore gums requested the sandwich be dipped in the au jus to make it easier on his mouth.

  Coming to a definitive answer on this one is unlikely. At one point a reporter from the Los Angeles Business Journal asked a city historian if he could shed light on the roots of the iconic local dish. The city employee’s deadpan answer: “We don’t have a French dip department.”

  Amazingly, both restaurants still exist more than a hundred years after they first opened. That said, they’ve both gone through changes with Philippe’s shifting locations in the 1950s and Cole’s closing down for a spell in 2007. As for which establishment serves the best French dip, that answer is as unclear as the sandwich’s provenance (the traditional French dip is made with roast beef, though other meats like lamb and turkey are also used nowadays). Whatever the case, it seems that both restaurants are happy to simply stake their claim to the dish’s origins and let the other do its business. Philippe’s co-owner Richard Binder philosophically summed up the debate in 2009 by saying, “Who knows what happened a hundred years ago? We’re just happy to still be around.”

  Philly Cheesesteak: Hungry hot dog vendor

  In the early 1930s, the lives of Pat and Harry Olivieri were dominated by one thing: hot dogs. The brothers ran a South Philadelphia stall and worked hard slinging the popular fast food during these Depression years. With hot dogs weighing heavily on Pat’s mind most of the time, it’s not surprising that one day he wanted a change.

  He sent off for a pound of steak (cost: seven cents) and decided that instead of tube meat he was going to rustle up something different on his hot dog griddle. He combined the meat, which was thinly sliced, with some cut onion and put them onto an Italian roll. This mouthwatering grease-fiesta of a sandwich wasn’t meant for customers; Pat planned for it to be his own hot dog break.
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  Enter an unnamed cabbie who wouldn’t take no for an answer. A popular spot for the working man, Pat and Harry’s hot dog stand was a regular haunt for taxi drivers. One happened to come for a dog just when Pat was about to enjoy his diverting meal. The customer took one look at the sandwich—and, probably more importantly, smelled it—and told him to forget the hot dog. He wanted Pat’s meal. A businessman first, Pat agreed to sell it for a dime.

  And thus the basis for the Philly cheesesteak was born. In reality, it could have had a short life if not for the aforementioned cabbie, who was smitten by the new dish. He began telling his fellow hacks about it and before long they were lining up asking for the same sandwich. Pat and Harry were hot dog men, but they saw a great opportunity. So in came the new steak sandwich. The pair ultimately opened up Pat’s King of Steaks not far from the original stall.

  Over the years the sandwich has evolved. Cheese was added in the 1950s with Cheez Whiz becoming the preferred choice of purists (though I’m not sure you should use purists with any mention of Cheez Whiz). Provolone or American can be used, but you shouldn’t stray too far from the basic cheese options. One-time presidential candidate John Kerry got grief for asking for swiss cheese. The request, along with Kerry’s dainty style of eating the beast of a sandwich, led one local newspaperman to write that “the man who would be president of the people was photographed delicately gripping the sandwich with his fingertips like he’s some kind of Boston blue blood playing the piccolo.”

  Other popular additions include sautéed mushrooms with ketchup and sweet peppers sometimes thrown in. There is even appropriate language: Customers are meant to ask for a sandwich “wit” or “wit out” various toppings.

  Regrettably, these being the tough streets of South Philly, the complete story of the cheesesteak is not a fairy tale. By the 1950s, the Olivieris had heated competition from other steak sandwich establishments. In 1966 Geno’s Steaks set up shop right across the street. Geno’s owner Joey Vento has long claimed his family first added the cheese to the cheesesteak, and the two shops have been in a heated—but good-natured—sandwich war since.

  The battles don’t stop there. In the 1970s, Pat left the business to move to Southern California. A legal tussle broke out between Pat’s son and Harry’s children over ownership of the now iconic spot (famed guests have included Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and the restaurant had a cameo in the Oscar-winning movie Rocky). One of Harry’s children, Frank, bought out the business, but a fight broke out again in 2006 when the current owner, Frank Jr., sued his cousin Rick (Pat’s grandson), who was running a competing cheesesteak stand, for trademark infringement. At least it’s the type of scrapping that would have made Rocky Balboa proud.

  Sandwiches: Focused gambler

  Time sure has a way of rehabilitating a reputation. Just ask the descendants of John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. Born in 1718, the Earl of Sandwich took to politics at a young age and served in many high-profile roles in British government.

  Alas, Sandwich’s reputation during his lifetime—and for a very long time afterwards—was less than stellar. He was criticized for negotiating unfavorable terms when brokering the Treaty Aix-la-Chapelle, ending the War of Austrian Succession in 1748. Later the Earl was derided by the public for helping prosecute politician and journalist John Wilkes for writing a ribald poem. And worst of all (from the British perspective), many have credited his performance as the first lord of admiralty during the American Revolution as a key reason the colonies won.

  He was so bad, one British historian claimed, that during the Revolutionary War some officers refused commands rather than serve under Sandwich, who was said to have focused intently on patronage rather than ability when filling most positions.

  “There may have been . . . worse administrators of the Navy; [but] there never was one who succeeded in attracting to himself such universal opprobrium,” the historian explained in 1919. “He sold his country for parliamentary votes, and the weakness of our Navy in the American War was the result.”

  Now this line of history may be a bit overblown. After all, he did sponsor Captain James Cook’s voyages and, if history had shifted a bit in his favor, we’d still be calling Hawaii by its original name—the Sandwich Islands—after the earl.

  But what really saved Montagu from history’s hall of shame was his penchant for gambling. The earl was well-known in his day as a libertine. Among his many vices, he had a longtime mistress with whom he had four children, and the man loved to drink. As one contemporary, Lord Chesterfield, put it, “He was a most profligate and abandoned character.”

  In 1762 the forty-four-year-old earl was also indulging in card playing. The story goes that during heated games, the earl refused to put down his cards and leave the table when it was time to eat. To solve the problem he insisted that typical fare such as roast beef and cheese be placed in between two pieces of bread so he could hold his cards with one hand and chow down with the other. A slight variation on this tale has Sandwich concerned that if he used his hands to pick up food, it would leave smudges and make it easier for his opponents to identify cards. (For those supporters of the earl, there is a benign but far less popular offering that had him toiling late into the night in front of papers, requiring a free hand to continue his work.)

  The earl’s creation was not the first filled-bread invention. Romans and early Jews, among others, were known for placing food in between bread products. But the Earl of Sandwich’s notoriety at a time when the British Empire was vast meant that stories of his habit could travel worldwide and become the moniker for the dish.

  For his descendants, this legacy has proved a lot easier to swallow than all the criticism. In 2001 the eleventh Earl of Sandwich and his son Orlando Montagu decided to cash in on the family name, opening up a chain of restaurants called the Earl of Sandwich.

  Keeping with the lore of the fourth earl, all the establishment’s sandwiches are made small enough to hold in one hand—even if patrons aren’t playing card games or doing work. Fittingly, the restaurant chain has “The Original 1762,” featuring hot roast beef, cheddar cheese, and horseradish sauce. There is also an “All American” sandwich on the menu, which considering the namesake’s bad history with the former colonies, may want to be reconsidered.

  Tempura: Missionaries’ menu

  The Japanese have brought a lot of fantastic things to this world: those slightly eerie, almost-human robots; sushi. . . . But amazingly, tempura, one of the country’s best-known dishes, is not one of them. Tempura was initially introduced by Portuguese visitors, who saw it as nothing more than a way to help maintain their religious zeal while in a foreign land.

  During the age of exploration, the Portuguese were among the most intrepid. On September 23, 1543, two Portuguese merchants first made contact with the Japanese, selling two guns to a feudal lord on the island of Tanegashima. Once trading opened up (the Japanese bartered for lots of Western products besides Portuguese guns), Catholic missionaries followed. They included St. Francis Xavier, who spent most of his life traveling abroad preaching.

  These devout missionaries and merchants carefully followed all the Catholic holidays while spending time in Japan. A big one in the sixteenth century was Ember Days. During this event, which took place four times a year, Catholics were required to abstain from meat.

  While the Portuguese were observant, it didn’t mean they’d completely lost their appetite. Longing for some flavor from home, the foreigners cooked up some yoshoku (Western food). They breaded shrimp and fish and fried them with oil (likely sesame oil). Numerous scholars say that the word tempura came from part of the Latin for Ember Days—quattour tempora—with tempora, meaning “times,” being the basis for naming this new style of cooking. Taking Western words and adding them to the Japanese lexicon was not uncommon during this era. Terms like tabako (tobacco), pan (bread), and juban (undershirt) all came from words brought to Japanese shores by foreigners.

  St
ill, the batter-fried dish wasn’t initially a hit amongst the Japanese. The Western version didn’t sit well with locals because it was likely a lot heavier than the fluffy batter used today. Some suggest that the Portuguese recipe for tempura was more about oiling up food than adding a crispy exterior.

  By the 1770s the Japanese had made changes to the process. The newer version had fish and vegetables wrapped in udon noodles. The lighter fare was skewered on bamboo sticks and became a popular choice at street stalls, where customers could eat it without the need of chopsticks.

  Since then tempura has developed into one of the country’s most recognizable dishes. The batter has become lighter over the years with egg, water, and flour as popular ingredients for breading everything from shellfish, octopus, and fish to all sorts of veggies. Nevertheless, the divine role played by Christian missionaries is not forgotten.

  “I had long heard that the origin of tempura could be traced to Portuguese cooking, and imagined that those original squid fritters had simply been ‘Japanized,’ ” wrote Takashi Morieda, an expert on Japanese cuisine. “But upon closer scrutiny, it becomes clear that what the Japanese actually acquired was an understanding of the deep-frying process—and from that point, tempura evolved to suit the country’s own unique palate, thus integrating it into the heart of Japanese cuisine.”

  TV Dinners: Overstocked turkeys