Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things (76 page)

It traveled to England, where a nineteenth-century food reformer and physician, Dr. J. H. Salisbury, advocated shredding all foods prior to eating them to increase their digestibility. Salisbury particularly believed in the health benefits of beef three times a day, washed down by hot water. Thus, steak, regardless of its quality, was shredded by the physician’s faddist followers and the Hamburg steak became
Salisbury steak,
served on a plate, not in a bun.

In the 1880s, the Hamburg steak traveled with a wave of German immigrants to America, where it acquired the name “hamburger steak,” then merely “hamburger.” Exactly when and why the patty was put in a bun is unknown. But when served at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, it was already a sandwich, with its name further abbreviated to “hamburg.” And some three decades before McDonald’s golden arch would become the gateway
to hamburger Mecca, the chain of White Castle outlets popularized the Tartar legacy.

Sandwich: 1760, England

The sandwich, as well as the Sandwich Islands (now the Hawaiian Islands), were named for a notorious eighteenth-century gambler, John Montagu, fourth earl of Sandwich, and British first lord of the Admiralty for the duration of the American Revolution.

Montagu’s tenure of office was characterized by graft, bribery, and mis-management, and his personal life, too, was less than exemplary. Although married, he kept a mistress, Margaret Reay, by whom he had four children. Because of his high military rank, when English explorer Captain James Cook discovered the Hawaiian archipelago, the islands were named in the earl’s honor.

An inveterate gambler, Montagu refused to leave the gaming tables even for meals. In 1762, when he was forty-four years old and the country’s foreign secretary, he spent twenty-four straight hours gambling, ordering sliced meats and cheeses served to him between pieces of bread. The repast, which enabled him to eat with one hand and gamble with the other, had for some time been his playing trademark, and that notorious episode established it as the “sandwich.”

Montagu’s sandwich was not the first food served between slices of bread. The Romans in the pre-Christian era enjoyed a light repast that they called an
offula
, which was a sandwich-like snack between meals. Perhaps it is not surprising that the Romans ate food between slices of bread; they were master bread bakers in the ancient world. A typical Roman loaf of bread, weighing one pound, was shaped into a mound and cooked in either of two ways: atop the stove, as
panis artopicius
, “pan bread”; or baked in an earthenware vessel, as
panis testustis
, “pot bread.” Historians in the second century
B.C
. pointedly observed that Roman women deplored ovens and left the baking of bread to freed slaves.

Bread
itself originated with the Egyptians about 2600
B.C
., when bakers made a momentous discovery. If they did not immediately bake a grain-and-water recipe called gruel, but first let it ferment, the resultant product was a higher, lighter bread. With this discovery of leavening, Egyptian bakers expanded their skills to include more than fifty different loaves, including whole wheat and sourdough breads.

Centuries later, the Westphalian Germans would create a variation on sour rye bread and pejoratively name it
pumpernickel
, from
pumpern
, “to break wind,” and
Nickel
, “Old Nick the devil.” The earliest instance of “pumpernickel” in print appeared in 1756 in A
Grand Tour of Germany
, by a travel writer named Nugent. He reported that the Westphalian loaf “is of the very coarsest kind, ill baked, and as black as a coal, for they never
sift their flour.” The sour rye bread was considered so difficult to digest that it was said to make even Satan break wind.

Melba Toast: 1892, London

The opera singer who gave her stage name to a dry, brittle crisp of toast—and to a dessert—was born Helen Porter Mitchell in 1861 in Melbourne, Australia. Adapting the name of her hometown, the coloratura soprano introduced it as her stage name in 1887 when she performed as Gilda in Verdi’s
Rigoletto
at Brussels. By the 1890s, Nellie Melba was adored by opera lovers around the world and worshiped by French chef Auguste Escoffier.

In 1892, Melba was staying at London’s Savoy Hotel, where Escoffier reigned as head chef. After attending her Covent Garden performance as Elsa in Wagner’s
Lohengrin
, he was inspired to create a dish for the diva, who regularly dined at the Savoy. Sculpting from a block of ice the wings of a swan, and coating them with iced sugar, he filled the center with vanilla ice cream topped with peaches. The dish was to recall the opera’s famous scene in which Lohengrin, knight of the Holy Grail, arrives to meet Elsa in a boat pulled by a swan, singing,
“Nun sei bedankt, mein lieber Schwan
” (“Only you to thank, my beloved swan”).

Chef Escoffier initially called his creation
peches au cygne
, “swan peaches.” Later, on the occasion of the opening of London’s Carlton Hotel, he improved on the dessert by adding raspberry sauce, and renamed it
Peach Melba
. The soprano, always weight conscious, breakfasted at the Savoy on tea and dry toasted bread as thin as Escoffier could slice it. Thus, her name came to represent both a low-calorie diet crisp and a decidedly nondietary dessert.

Ketchup: 300
B.C
., Rome

Though we think of ketchup as strictly a tomato-based sauce, it was defined for centuries as any seasoned sauce of puree consistency and was one of civilization’s earliest condiments. First prepared by the Romans in 300
B.C
., it consisted of vinegar, oil, pepper, and a paste of dried anchovies, and was called
liquamen
. The Romans used the sauce to enhance the flavor of fish and fowl, and several towns were renowned for their condiment factories. Among the ruins of Pompeii were small jars bearing an inscription translated as: “Best strained liquamen. From the factory of Umbricus Agathopus.”

Though the Roman puree is the oldest “ketchup” on record, it is not the direct antecedent of our modern recipe. In 1690, the Chinese developed a tangy sauce, also for fish and fowl. A brine of pickled fish, shellfish, and spices, it was named
ke-tsiap
, and its popularity spread to the Malay archipelago, where it was called
kechap
.

Early in the eighteenth century, British seamen discovered the natives of Singapore and Malaysia using
kechap
and brought samples of the puree back to their homeland. English chefs attempted to duplicate the condiment, but, unfamiliar with its Eastern spices, they were forced to make substitutions such as mushrooms, walnuts, and cucumbers. Mistakenly spelled “ketchup,” the puree became an English favorite, and a popular 1748 cookbook,
Housekeeper’s Pocketbook
, by a Mrs. Harrison, cautions the homemaker “never to be without the condiment.” It was so popular in England that Charles Dickens, in
Barnaby Rudge
, smacked his lips over “lamb chops breaded with plenty of ketchup,” and Lord Byron praised the puree in his poem “Beppo.”

When and where did tomatoes enter ketchup?

Around 1790, in New England.

It could not have been much earlier, because prior to that decade, colonists suspected the tomato of being as poisonous as its botanical relatives deadly nightshade and belladonna. Although the Aztecs had cultivated the tomato (technically a berry and a fruit), calling it
tamatl
, and the Spaniards had sampled it as a
tomate
, early botanists correctly recognized it as a member of the family
Solanaceae
, which includes several poisonous plants (but also the potato and the eggplant). The Italians (who would later make the tomato an indispensable part of their cuisine) called it
mala insana
, “unhealthy apple,” and food authorities can only conclude that many peoples, unfamiliar with the plant, ate not its large red berries but its leaves, which are toxic.

In America, Thomas Jefferson, one of the first in the United States to cultivate the tomato, is credited with exonerating and legitimizing the fruit. One of the earliest recipes for “tomata catsup” appeared in the 1792
The New Art of Cookery
, by Richard Brigg. And though acceptance of the tomato and its ketchup was slow, by the mid-1800s the fruit and its puree were kitchen staples. A popular cookbook of the day, Isabella Beeton’s
Book of Household Management
, counseled housewives: “This flavoring ingredient is one of the most useful sauces to the experienced cook, and no trouble should be spared in its preparation.”

But preparation of homemade ketchup was time-consuming. Tomatoes had to be parboiled and peeled, and the puree had to be continually stirred. It is little wonder that in 1876, homemakers eagerly purchased America’s first mass-produced, bottled ketchup, from the factory of German-American chef and businessman Henry Heinz. Heinz Tomato Catsup, billed as “Blessed relief for Mother and the other women in the household!” was an immediate success in its wide-base, thin-neck, cork-sealed bottle, and both the bottle design and the ingredients in the puree have hardly changed in over a hundred years.

Following the success of ketchup, Henry Heinz produced a variety of pickles, relishes, fruit butters, and horseradishes. But his company as yet had no identifiable slogan. In the early 1890s, while riding in a New York City elevated subway car, Heinz spotted a sign above a local store: “21
Styles of Shoes.” In a moment of inspiration, he reworked the phrase, upped the number, and created what would become one of the most famous numerical slogans in advertising: “57 Varieties.” At that time, the company actually produced sixty-five different products; Henry Heinz simply liked the way the number 57 looked in print.

Worcestershire Sauce
. In the mid-1800s, British nobleman Sir Marcus Sandys returned to his native England from service in India as governor of the province of Bengal. A noted epicure, Sandys had acquired a recipe for a tangy sauce, a secret blend of spices and seasonings which was doused liberally on many Indian dishes.

From his estate in Worcester, England, Sandys commissioned two chemists, John Lea and William Perrins, to prepare bottles of the sauce for private use in his household and as gifts for friends. Its popularity prompted Lea and Perrins, with Sandys’s permission, to manufacture it under the name “Worcester Sauce.” It debuted in America, though, as “Worcestershire Sauce,” shire being the British equivalent to county, and Worcestershire being the county seat of Worcester. Americans took readily to the condiment, if not to the pronunciation of its name.

A.1. Steak Sauce
. As the white sauce béchamel was created by Louis de Béchamel, steward to France’s King Louis XIV, A.1. Steak Sauce was the brainchild of another royal chef, and was created to please the palate of another European monarch: England’s King George IV. Indolent, devious, and profligate, and by his own assessment “rather too fond of women and wine,” George was redeemed in later public opinion for his superb taste in paintings and his recognition of the literary genius of Jane Austen and Walter Scott. He was also an epicure, whose gastronomic demands challenged his chief chef, Brand. Brand continually devised new dishes and sauces, and one spicy condiment for meats consisted of soy, vinegar, anchovy, and shallots. Popular legend has it that on tasting the new sauce, the king approvingly declared, “This sauce is A-1!”

There may be truth to the tale. During George’s reign, from 1820 to 1830, Lloyds of London began numerically classifying ships for insurance purposes, with “A Number 1” being the highest rating, for the most insurable vessels. The phrase caught on with London businessmen and the general public, who used it to label everything from prime real estate to quality theater fare, often in the abbreviated form “A-1.” It came to signify any person, place, or thing that was “tops” or “first class.”

Following the monarch’s death, Brand resigned and began to manufacture his condiment privately. It was exported to America, but during World War I, British shipments became infrequent and sporadic. The American-based spirits company of Heublein finally reached an agreement with the Brand Company of England, and A.1. Steak Sauce went into production in Hartford, Connecticut. During Prohibition, with no legal home market
for Heublein’s line of liquors, it was A.1. Steak Sauce— “The Dash That Makes The Dish” —that kept the company from bankruptcy. Today Brand’s condiment is one of the top-selling meat sauces in America.

Mayonnaise
. A Spanish condiment made of raw egg yolk and olive oil was popular on Minorca, one of the Balearic Islands, beginning in the eighteenth century. While neighboring Majorca would acquire fame when composer Frédéric Chopin sojourned there, Minorca would become known in Europe for its sauce, which was sampled by the French duke Richelieu in the island’s major port of Mahón.

Richelieu returned to France with the recipe for what he humbly labeled “sauce of Mahón.” But adopted by French chefs as a high-quality condiment reserved for the best meats, the sauce was renamed
Mahonnaise
. Even when “mayonnaise” arrived in America in the early 1800s, it was regarded as a delicate French creation, and one difficult to prepare.

Two breakthroughs transformed the haute sauce to a popular sandwich spread: the arrival of the electric blender, which simplified its preparation; and inexpensive bottled dressings. Richard Hellman, the German-born owner of a Manhattan delicatessen, perceived that there was a market for a quality premixed brand of mayonnaise, and in 1912 he began selling his own version in one-pound wooden “boats.” A year later, he packaged the product in large glass jars. It’s ironic but understandable that as the condiment became increasingly commonplace, spread on BLTs and burgers, it lost its former luster as haute Mahónnaise, the exotic sauce of Mahón.