the Gatsby

[Victor Steinbok]

Sauveur magazine has an article this month (April, 2010, p. 18) on the
origin of the Gatsby sandwich in Cape Town. It sounds a lot like classic
urban legends associated with many inventions, such as hamburger,
buffalo wings, etc. Actually, it /exactly/ like the buffalo wing legend.
The underlying claim relies on 1) the coinage occurring at the time the
Redford film was first playing in SA (1976), and 2) the fact that
alleged coiner was out of one kind of food to feed his hungry workers,
so he substituted another and topped it off with leftovers (chips and
Achar). This was followed by one of the said workers exclaiming, "This
is fantastic--a Gatsby smash!" The story fails to explain how the
fish-and-chips shop managed to run out of fish, but had fried bologna on
hand--perhaps SA fish-and-chips shops are like the roast beef shops
around here (Boston) that sell all kinds of junk (but I've never heard
of one of the latter running out of roast beef).

     VS-)

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