In 2016, a author named Elizabeth Weil penned an article for The New York Times recounting her household’s function within the creation of the Reuben sandwich. In response to the story, Weil’s grandfather, Bernard Schimmel, served the primary Reuben throughout a card sport on the Blackstone Resort in Omaha, Nebraska. His father, Weil’s great-grandfather, owned the resort the place he hosted a Sunday night time poker sport. When one of many gamers requested a corned beef and sauerkraut sandwich, Schimmel, who had studied at École Hôtelière in Lausanne, Switzerland, put his personal spin on the snack, mixing Thousand Island dressing with the sauerkraut and added Swiss cheese earlier than piling it excessive on darkish rye bread and grilling it.
The sandwich, served with a dill pickle, a rose radish, and potato chips, grew to become a staple on the resort menu. The snack-craving poker buddy’s identify? Reuben Kulakofsky. Ah ha, you say? Not so quick. Seems Weil’s article generated some heated dialogue (by way of Saveur), together with a response from a New York-based meals historian who took difficulty along with her household legend, insisting the Reuben was created in 1914 by New York deli proprietor Arnold Reuben who concocted a sandwich consisting of ham, cheese, turkey, cole slaw, and dressing for Annette Seelos, an early Twentieth-century actress who often labored with Charlie Chaplin. Which sounds shut, however the place’s the corned beef?
