Cuban Sandwich; Ice Cream Sandwich

Bapopik at AOL.COM Bapopik at AOL.COM
Tue Mar 28 06:25:02 UTC 2000


CUBAN SANDWICH (continued)

    Does "Cuban sandwich" really go back 100 years?  I now have three early
cites--and this one is from 1900-1901!
    From the AMERICAN KITCHEN MAGAZINE, March 1901 (?--I'll explain), pg.
xxii, col. 2:

    A sandwich popular at Cuban restaurants is almost a meal in itself.  It
is made with two thin slices of the ordinary wheat loaf made in sandwich
form.  No butter is used, but on the lower slice is placed, first, a layer of
the breast of cold chicken cut very thin; over this goes more wafer-thin
slices of cold boiled ham, then cucumber pickles also sliced very thin;
shavings of bologna sausage top the pickle, and over the sausage slices of
cheese.  The bread top is then put on and the whole is fitted into an oblong
frame which neatly and quickly trims off the crust and shapes the sandwich.
It is then folded in plain white paper and delivered, the whole operation
having been accomplished in sight of the purchaser and in an incredibly short
space of time.  Twenty cents of our money pays for the sandwich, which is
eaten with a glass of wine or of beer.--_New York Evening Post, Saturday,
October 6_.

    I couldn't find it easily in the New York Post, 6 October 1900 (Page?
Column?), but it might be there.
    Now, about the American Kitchen Magazine.  This volume runs October
1900-March 1901.  After March 1901, the Roman numbered pages begin.  These
pages are half ads, half food-related copy reprinted from other periodicals.
ALL THESE PAGES ARE LUMPED TOGETHER.  So this "xxii" page could be in any one
of those issues.  From the order it's in, the "Cuban sandwich" article might
be in the December 1900 issue, but I'll have to check out the hard copy to
know for sure.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------
ICE CREAM SANDWICH (continued)

    I had previously traced "ice cream sandwich" to Wall Street, summer of
1900.  (See ADS-L archives.)  This article claims that the ice cream sandwich
is from the Bowery.
    From the AMERICAN KITCHEN MAGAZINE, March 1901 (??), pg. xxxiv, col. 2:

    _A NEW SANDWICH._
    There are ham sandwiches and salmon sandwiches and cheese sandwiches and
several other kinds of sandwiches--a down town restaurant advertises 30
varieties--but the latest is the ice-cream sandwich.  As a new fad the
ice-cream sandwich might have made thousands of dollars for its inventor had
the novelty been launched by a well known caterer, but strangely enough the
ice-cream sandwich made its advent in an humble Bowery push-cart, and is sold
for a penny.
     The idea is worthy of a better field, for the ice-cream sandwich is not
only a distinct novelty, but it has merits of its own.  It will be
appreciated by the child who on eating ice-cream for the first time wanted to
have it warmed.  While losing nothing of its flavor, the thin wafers which go
to make up the sandwich help to modify the coolness of the ice-cream, so that
it can be eaten more readily.  The ice-cream sandwich as made on the Bowery
is constructed in this wise.  A thin milk biscuit is placed in a tin mold
just large enough to receive it.  Then the mold is filled with ice cream from
a freezer, and another wafer is placed on top.  There is an arrangement for
forcing the sandwich out of the mold when complete, and the whole process
takes onlya few seconds.  The ice-cream sandwich man is the envy of all the
other push-cart restauranteurs on the Bowery, as he has all the patrons he
can attend to, and the cart is always surrounded by curious customers.--_From
the New York Mail and Express_.



More information about the Ads-l mailing list