[Ads-l] The "St. Paul sandwich"

Wilson Gray hwgray at GMAIL.COM
Tue Jan 12 20:53:32 UTC 2016


I found the description posted to Facebook's S.I.G., You Know You From St.
Louis If You Remember..., but it's originally from W:pedia:

https://encrypted.google.com/webhp?hl=en-us&authuser=0#q=%22st.+paul+sandwich%22&hl=en-us&authuser=0&start=0

https://goo.gl/nk4wQI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Paul_sandwich

"The St. Paul sandwich can be found in many Chinese-American restaurants in
ST. LOUIS, Missouri, as well as in other cities in Missouri, including
Columbia, Jefferson City, and Springfield. White bread, egg foo young
patty, pickle slices, white onion, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomatoes."

A discussant now living in Vegas adds,

"The St Paul is unique. And [it's found] only in Missouri and a few places
in Illinois near St. Lou. But other places just don't know what they're
missing. It's on my list when I go back to the Lou."

The earliest mention of this "sang witch" that I've found is in a snippet
from a word-list in (Quelle surprise!) AS:
American Speech - Page 308
https://books.google.com/books?id=ONI4AAAAMAAJ
Louise Pound, ‎Kemp Malone, ‎Arthur Garfield Kennedy - 1943 - ‎Snippet view
ST. PAUL SANDWICH. Sandwich made of four pieces of bread, with sliced
chicken between two [of the] pieces and egg between the other two.

Apparently, the St. Louis "St. Paul sandwich" is not original, but is only
a local, Chinese-American variation on a sandwich that was already known.

Personally, I'd never heard of this "sammitch" before a few hours ago. The
Lou of today is not the Loutown - a calque on "Naptown" < Indianapolis,
whose boogie-joogie radio stations can be picked up in St. Louis - of my
childhood and youth. There was a real, honest-to-goodness, stereotypical
Chinese laundry in the 'hood, but it wasn't till a couple of years ago that
I discovered that St. Louis had a Chinatown A.K.A. "Hop Alley." I was
shocked. Shocked!

Youneverknow.
-- 
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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