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Little did we suspect, as we embarked on unravelling the mysterious origin of the Reuben, that we were entering disputed territory -- that difficult, emotionally charged zone of regional rivalries, food folklore, and unwritten history. The lack of conclusive evidence made our hunt for the origin of the Reuben more challenging and controversial than we had anticipated. Our first search result took us to a page titled American Food Folklore and Culinary History: Buffalo Wings, Reuben Sandwiches, and Caesar Salads, written by Jim Rader from Merriam-Webster. He describes the controversy that began in the late 1980s when an Omaha, Nebraska,
columnist challenged the Random House College Dictionary's reuben etymology, which attributed the sandwich to "Arnold Reuben (1883-1970), U.S. restaurateur." Reuben's was a landmark Manhattan delicatessen, first established around 1908. It occupied several locations before moving to East 58th Street in 1935, where it stayed for the next thirty years. Arnold Reuben's daughter describes a Reuben Special sandwich created in 1914 to feed Annette Seelos, Charlie Chaplin's hungry leading lady. The Special featured meat, cheese, cole slaw, and russian dressing on buttered toasted rye. Folks in Omaha advocate a different genealogy. They claim that a wholesale grocer named Reuben Kulakofsky created the sandwich at Omaha's Blackstone
Hotel back in 1925 (1922 in some versions), to feed players in a late-night poker game. It was such a hit that the hotel owner put it on the menu and named it in Reuben K.'s honor. Years later, in 1956, Fern Snider, a waitress at the Blackstone, entered the recipe in a national sandwich competition and won. Documentation for some of these events does exist, including a 1937 menu from the Cornhusker Hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska, describing the Reuben as we know it today: corn beef, sauerkraut, and swiss cheese on russian rye with a special dressing. "I suspect the real history of the Reuben sandwich has yet to be written," concludes dictionary editor Jim Rader, and we suspect he's right. Cruising the Web for reubenesque recipes and references
did not lead us to any new conclusions. Epicurious, a reliable compendium of food facts, cites variant versions of both the Omaha and Manhattan Reuben claims. Most other sources follow suit. Although the Web doesn't offer a definitive answer to your question, if you're looking for a Reuben recipe or restaurant recommendation, you can't go wrong online. There's even a tofu Reuben! Just remember, De gustibus non est disputandum! (That's Latin for "there's no accounting for
tastes.")
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