Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. Listen, Tracy.
Speaker 1: We have really had some downers lately, some murders. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not the most fun topics going on. Last week's recording
Speaker 1: session was particularly grim, which is great because this week
Speaker 1: we've kept it pretty late. We both have been promising
Speaker 1: some more fun stuff, which we are delivering on. I
Speaker 1: went marching right back to eponymous food because to me,
Speaker 1: it's the gift that keeps on giving. It's fun. There
Speaker 1: are weird side streets you can go down. It kind
Speaker 1: of hits all of my curiosity points, and so far
Speaker 1: I have not discovered a murder involved in any of
Speaker 1: the food. So today we are going to cover a
Speaker 1: super yummy comfort food from Italy and two ishes with
Speaker 1: a lot of debate as to their origin. One of
Speaker 1: them is associated with the U. S. East Coast and
Speaker 1: one on the West coast. All of them, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: are delicious. If you think there's nothing quite so delicious
Speaker 1: and comforting as a giant bowl of fettuccini alfredo, I
Speaker 1: sure love it. We'll talk more about that on Friday.
Speaker 1: You're not alone. Although if you were to order this
Speaker 1: by name in Italy, people might give you an odd look.
Speaker 1: This dish would normally show up on menus in Italy
Speaker 1: as fettuccini al treplo, the fettuccini with three butters. You
Speaker 1: might see this as fettuccini albero or fettuccini a la crema.
Speaker 1: And the beauty of this one is really as simplicity.
Speaker 1: The story of its origin is known really well. This
Speaker 1: starts with a family with a husband cooking for his wife.
Speaker 1: In nineteen o eight, Alfredo de la Leo was working
Speaker 1: at the family restaurant that was a little Trittoria and
Speaker 1: Piazza Rossa in Rome, run by his mother Angelina, and
Speaker 1: night was a very big year for de la Leo
Speaker 1: because he and his wife Inez had their first child, Armando.
Speaker 1: But as the story goes, after Armando was born and
Speaker 1: as was very sick, she was quite weak. She had
Speaker 1: no appetite, and Alfredo understandably was very worried about his wife,
Speaker 1: so the restaurant tour tried to make her something that
Speaker 1: would appeal to her palate and stimulate her appetite. And
Speaker 1: give her some energy, maybe a tall order. He made
Speaker 1: a bowl of fettuccini and then added in butter and parmesan,
Speaker 1: and then, according to the Delileo family legend, he prayed
Speaker 1: to one of the patron saints of mothers, which was St. Anne,
Speaker 1: and then presented his wife with this dish and told
Speaker 1: her that if she did not like it, he would
Speaker 1: eat it. He did not get to eat it. Not
Speaker 1: only didn't as love it. She thought that her husband
Speaker 1: should add it to the restaurant's menu, and he did,
Speaker 1: and thus one of the yummiest foods of all time
Speaker 1: was born. So the was surely not the first time
Speaker 1: that somebody had combined pasta, butter, and parmesan. But there
Speaker 1: were some aspects of Alfredo's version that were a little
Speaker 1: different than other Italian dishes that have similar ingredients. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about that secret in just a moment, uh and
Speaker 1: some other aspects of his dish that would have separated
Speaker 1: it from those other precursors. Alfredo opened his own restaurant
Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen in Via della Scrofa, and he simply
Speaker 1: called it Alfredo, and he continued to build on the
Speaker 1: success that he had already achieved and his reputation for
Speaker 1: exceptionally delicious pasta. He also started to get the attention
Speaker 1: of hungry diners from well outside of Rome, as wealthy tourists,
Speaker 1: some very notable started to visit his place. A lot
Speaker 1: of travelers from the United States landed in Alfredo's during
Speaker 1: a tour of Europe in the early years of his restaurant.
Speaker 1: Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford famously visited Alfredo's restaurant on
Speaker 1: their honeymoon that was in n and they loved it
Speaker 1: so much they reported eight their every single day that
Speaker 1: they were in Rome. Prohibition in the US contributed to
Speaker 1: a bump in tourism in the nineteen twenties as American
Speaker 1: tourists sought out vacation destinations where they could get a
Speaker 1: drink with their meals. In nine seven, Alfredo was knighted
Speaker 1: for the excellence of his beettettini, and an interview Delai
Speaker 1: Leo gave to a journalist at the time, he said
Speaker 1: this was because he always used the very best ingredients
Speaker 1: to make his pasta, even in the most difficult times.
Speaker 1: Quote during the war, he said, I found a way.
Speaker 1: He was not especially secretive about what made his way
Speaker 1: of dressing fettuccini special, saying quote double quantity of butter
Speaker 1: and cheese and well mixed. That is my secret. Yes,
Speaker 1: so his secret was just more more of the fatty
Speaker 1: things that make it delicious. We'll also talk about how
Speaker 1: he made his noodles, which is a little different too.
Speaker 1: Alfredo was really really proud of the name that he
Speaker 1: had made for himself and of his dedicated and impressive patrons,
Speaker 1: noting in that interview quote, kings, princes, ministers have eaten here.
Speaker 1: The Crown Prince of Sweden is one of my patrons.
Speaker 1: The journalist conducting the interview, Alice Wrote wrote of his
Speaker 1: table side manner quote, people go to Alfredo's not only
Speaker 1: to eat his delicious fetacchini, but to see him prepare it.
Speaker 1: After it has been cooked, a waiter brings it from
Speaker 1: the kitchen. Alfredo approaches with a spoon and fork, as
Speaker 1: though advancing to a sacrificial right. He poises fork and
Speaker 1: spoon aloft esthetically, and then begins to mix into the
Speaker 1: fetaccini a generous supply of the best butter and grated
Speaker 1: parmesan cheese. But even beyond disclosing his double the butter
Speaker 1: and cheese secret Alfredo gave Row the entire recipe for
Speaker 1: his fetacchini noodles as well. Here it is quote, Sift
Speaker 1: upon the mixing board a kilo of fine white flour,
Speaker 1: make a hole in the center of the mound of flower,
Speaker 1: and into this breaks seven eggs. Then, with your hands,
Speaker 1: never with a spoon, gradually worked the flour into the
Speaker 1: eggs until no more can be assimilated. Then add a
Speaker 1: tumbler of water and a dash of salt, and gradually
Speaker 1: need the entire mixture into a smooth paste. Work it thin,
Speaker 1: and when all is perfectly smooth, roll it into a
Speaker 1: thin sheet. Then cut the paste in narrow strips a
Speaker 1: third of an inch wide. This is enough for eight
Speaker 1: persons served abundantly, or nine served cocy cosy enough. He
Speaker 1: recommended boiling his homemade noodles for exactly eight minutes and
Speaker 1: leaving them damp instead of draining them dry. He said
Speaker 1: that he used an eighth of a pound of butter
Speaker 1: for each individual serving. That's half a stick of butter,
Speaker 1: and quote an ample sprinkling of parmesan cheese. Finest quality
Speaker 1: of the utmost importance, according to De la Leo, is
Speaker 1: mixing the butter, cheese, and noodles, so every noodle is
Speaker 1: evenly coated. Yeah, for anybody that hasn't made pasta, that
Speaker 1: amount of eggs is a lot. It means that your
Speaker 1: noodles are very, very rich in flavor. And an eighth
Speaker 1: of a pound of butter a half stick of butter
Speaker 1: is a lot to put in one survey. Uh. That
Speaker 1: same year that that rite up appeared again. That was uh,
Speaker 1: and it was in numerous papers because it was picked
Speaker 1: up and syndicated. Alfredo also received a very lavish gift
Speaker 1: from Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, a solid gold spoon
Speaker 1: and fork set that were modeled after the ones he
Speaker 1: used to toss his fedaccini for guests. On the handle
Speaker 1: of one was engraved to Alfredo, the King of the Noodles,
Speaker 1: Mary Pickford July. The other had the exact same inscription,
Speaker 1: but had Fairbanks his name instead of Pickford's, and according
Speaker 1: to the official history of the family restaurant, those words
Speaker 1: were quote read by every famous person who had the
Speaker 1: honor to taste the Mesto fedccini. Mesto sisim means most majestic,
Speaker 1: and that is the name of the dish. On the
Speaker 1: menu even today, Lave miss Sissimo fedaccini. Alfredo Alfredo and
Speaker 1: his delicious pasta started getting mentions in international papers that
Speaker 1: drew even more visitors. Before the nineteen twenties were over,
Speaker 1: restaurateur and writer George Rector had included the recipe for
Speaker 1: Alfredo Delileo's famed dish in his cookbook, The Rector Cookbook.
Speaker 1: All that press, plus the cachet of having movie stars
Speaker 1: tout the dishes as exceptional mint that soon everybody wanted
Speaker 1: to try fetacchini. Alfredo and Delileo definitely leaned into his
Speaker 1: public persona and his growing fame. He really understood that
Speaker 1: showmanship was part of growing his business, and if you
Speaker 1: do an image search for him online, you're likely going
Speaker 1: to pretty quickly find photos of him feigning to feed
Speaker 1: guests his fetacchini by the handful. That was sort of
Speaker 1: part of a stick that he developed as a table
Speaker 1: side show of having your noodles dressed. It looks a
Speaker 1: little squirrely to me to have someone like with a
Speaker 1: fistful of fetacchini's, But even so, it was really always
Speaker 1: always about the food. As he told a reporter quote,
Speaker 1: I've always been more interested in perfect cooking than anything else.
Speaker 1: In ninety three, the tourist trade had evaporated thanks to
Speaker 1: World War Two, Alfredo decided to retire. He handed the
Speaker 1: restaurant off to his son Armando, whose birth catalyzed the
Speaker 1: invention of this famous dish. Armando took on the moniker
Speaker 1: Alfredo the Second as the business passed to him. In
Speaker 1: ninety six, the Via della scroll for a restaurant was
Speaker 1: sold to two members of the staff. But just a
Speaker 1: few years later, in nineteen fifty, Alfredo the first day
Speaker 1: Alfredo the Second had another restaurant, this time called Il
Speaker 1: Vero Alfredo the Real Alfredo, and they opened it in
Speaker 1: Piazza Augusto Rempert. That restaurant is where you can order
Speaker 1: most majestic fettuccini, and it is still there and still
Speaker 1: run by the family. It is currently run by Alfredo
Speaker 1: the first grandson and granddaughter Armando, who goes by Alfredo
Speaker 1: the third, and it is Deli Leo. The Via della
Speaker 1: Scrofa location is also still open. Those two restaurants are
Speaker 1: kind of competitors. You may have noticed the dish, as
Speaker 1: originally made by Alfredo, was really simple, just butter and
Speaker 1: cheese and that's not typically how you would make it.
Speaker 1: If you looked up the recipe today, particularly here in
Speaker 1: the US, most recipes you'll find we'll probably have heavy
Speaker 1: cream in them, but that was never part of the
Speaker 1: original version, and this is simply due to differences in
Speaker 1: ingredient availability. As fedaccini Alfredo caught on in the US,
Speaker 1: it just didn't quite have that delicious richness that it
Speaker 1: had in Italy. And there were a few reasons for one.
Speaker 1: Alfredo de la Leo, as we said, made his fedacchini
Speaker 1: from scratch, and his recipe had more egg than most,
Speaker 1: using a hand ground wheat flour, and that gave it
Speaker 1: this layered, deep flavor. Additionally, the butter he was using
Speaker 1: was richer than what would normally be available in most
Speaker 1: North American grocery stores. And of course the cheese. Alfredo
Speaker 1: was using parmesanio reggiano. It's parmesan cheese. But just as
Speaker 1: champagne is a sparkling wine from the Champagne area in France,
Speaker 1: parmegiano reggiano can only come from particular parts of Italy.
Speaker 1: Its ingredients are specific and it must have been aged
Speaker 1: for between one and three years, so to approximate the
Speaker 1: richness of flavor of all of those ingredients. Fans of
Speaker 1: Alfredo's dish outside of Italy added other ingredients, just why
Speaker 1: we have heavy cream usually in American versions. And today
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty simple to acquire Parmesiano riggiano in a
Speaker 1: grocery store in the US. You'll also find garlic on
Speaker 1: the list of ingredients and Alfredo sauce. But that's something
Speaker 1: that Alfredo Dlalio would be really lived about. In ninett
Speaker 1: an article appeared in papers across the US under the
Speaker 1: title cooks in Rome denied garlic is Italy's favorite. This
Speaker 1: quoted several prominent Italian chefs and restaurateurs who were just
Speaker 1: beyond irritated that there was a rumor that Italians ate
Speaker 1: copious amounts of garlic. He insisted that garlic did not
Speaker 1: come within a mile of his signature dish, and of
Speaker 1: the rumor itself, he said, quote, it's a lopsided ragout
Speaker 1: and has to stop. Alfredo de la Leo died of
Speaker 1: a heart attack in ninety nine at the age of
Speaker 1: seventy seven, and in the US National Fertuccini Alfredo Day
Speaker 1: is celebrated on February seven. We are going to move
Speaker 1: on to a dish that's often associated with brunch, but
Speaker 1: before we do that, we'll have a minute and pause
Speaker 1: for a sponsor break. The next epon hymous food we're
Speaker 1: covering is a little tricky because it's not clear exactly
Speaker 1: for whom it is named, although there are many contenders.
Speaker 1: But we can tell you for certain that eggs Benedict
Speaker 1: is not named for Benedict Arnold, even though that seems
Speaker 1: like a pretty common misconception that people make. Although there
Speaker 1: are many many variations on this dish, the base recipe
Speaker 1: for eggs Benedict calls for Canadian bacon and poached eggs
Speaker 1: sitting on top of the two split halves of an
Speaker 1: English muffin, with a generous drizzle of hollandaise sauce to
Speaker 1: top that all off. So before we get into the
Speaker 1: debates over who eggs Benedict is named for, let's talk
Speaker 1: first about hollandaise, just to get that out of the way.
Speaker 1: Hollandaise sauce, or a sort of proto version of it,
Speaker 1: dates back at least to the mid seventeenth century. In
Speaker 1: the cookbook Li Cuisinier Francois Francois Pierre de la Verne
Speaker 1: gives the basic recipe, although his lax lemon juice. In
Speaker 1: a recipe for asparagus in a sweet sauce, he writes,
Speaker 1: make a sauce with very fresh butter, a little vinegar, salt, nutmeg,
Speaker 1: and an egg yolk to thicken the sauce, being careful
Speaker 1: that that doesn't turn as an aside. This is from
Speaker 1: the Terence Scully translation of that cookbook. There are others
Speaker 1: that may have slightly different wording because the translation is
Speaker 1: just a little different. Uh Today, a hollandaise would include
Speaker 1: lemon juice and perhaps even cayenne pepper, but it was
Speaker 1: probably around even before that. That name. Hollandaise means Dutch sauce,
Speaker 1: and it's believed by some to have traveled to France
Speaker 1: via Hugueno who were returning to their home country after
Speaker 1: having been exiled. There's a difference of opinion on that
Speaker 1: last point, though. The sauce is sometimes attributed to Normandy
Speaker 1: as the place of origin and to the town Isigny specifically.
Speaker 1: The town is known for its butter, and you can
Speaker 1: find the same recipe listed in some places as Sauce
Speaker 1: isign Yee. It became known as Hollandaise thanks to prior
Speaker 1: podcast subject august Escoffier, who listed it in his book
Speaker 1: as the fifth mother sauce, although his predecessor and another
Speaker 1: podcast subject, Marie Antoine Karem, had also used it and
Speaker 1: called it that Karem did not listed as a mother sauce.
Speaker 1: One possible reason for the change in name to Hollandaise
Speaker 1: sauce may have been as simple as the change of
Speaker 1: butter sauce from using butter that was made and is
Speaker 1: an yee to butter that was made in Hollo and
Speaker 1: so getting back to eggs Benedict. One claim to the
Speaker 1: name origin of the dish is stockbroker Lemuel Benedict. Benedict
Speaker 1: was successful and a ladies man, and a bit of
Speaker 1: a dandy when it came to his appearance. He was
Speaker 1: not a man who buried himself in work and laid
Speaker 1: low in his downtime. He was from a wealthy and
Speaker 1: conservative family, a family which did not appreciate the fact
Speaker 1: that lem was kind of a New York party person,
Speaker 1: very outgoing with the very flamboyant style. If you've ever
Speaker 1: seen photos of wealthy folks out in the cold wearing
Speaker 1: a raccoon skin coat limb was one of those. He
Speaker 1: also allegedly carried a cane that had a flask built
Speaker 1: into it, so no surprise based on that description, Lemuel
Speaker 1: Benedict had a reputation for a fun waite. Staff in
Speaker 1: the restaurants that he frequented loved him because he tipped
Speaker 1: really generously. He was seen about town with a variety
Speaker 1: of beautiful dates, and sometimes all of that party and
Speaker 1: caught up to him in the form of an epic hangover.
Speaker 1: According to the Lemue Little Benedict version of the Eggs
Speaker 1: Benedict origin story, one morning in he sat down for
Speaker 1: breakfast at the Waldorf Hotel, and he was feeling the
Speaker 1: previous night's indulgence, and so he ordered a variety of
Speaker 1: breakfast items, buttered toast, two poached eggs, and some bacon,
Speaker 1: and also a picture of hollandaise sauce. I've paused because
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about how if I had a hangover,
Speaker 1: this is not at all what would help me. Once
Speaker 1: Lemuel had been brought his order, he said to have
Speaker 1: assembled the items into two stacks and then poured the
Speaker 1: sauce over them. So, according to this tale, he invented
Speaker 1: this himself at his table. When Oscar Stirky, the major
Speaker 1: d of the hotel, saw what the stockbroker had put together,
Speaker 1: he duplicated that in the kitchen and found it to
Speaker 1: be delightful, so subbing out an English muffin instead of
Speaker 1: the toast, and Canadian bacon or ham instead of bacon
Speaker 1: that went on to the menu. That version of the
Speaker 1: origin story was repeated by The New Yorker on December eleven,
Speaker 1: ninety two, in an article written by Thomas Dormus and
Speaker 1: Russell Maloney that was simply titled Benedict. At that point,
Speaker 1: Lemuel Benedict was still alive. He had married an opera
Speaker 1: singer named Carrie Bridewell in nineteen o eight. He had
Speaker 1: known all manner of famous and important people, and according
Speaker 1: to the New Yorker quote, Benedict's has been a full
Speaker 1: and happy life. He gave an interview for it as well,
Speaker 1: and he died the year after that article came out
Speaker 1: in three at the age of seventy six. He apparently
Speaker 1: never transitioned over to the English muffin version of eggs Benedict.
Speaker 1: He always preferred toast, and in that article about him
Speaker 1: in the New Yorker. He gave the quote English muffins
Speaker 1: are unpalatable, no matter how much they are toasted or
Speaker 1: how they are served. Disagree. Uh. There is of course
Speaker 1: a different story to how this dish got its name.
Speaker 1: In article ran in Bonapaty about the dish, and in
Speaker 1: that story there's a couple Mr and Mrs La gram Benedict,
Speaker 1: for whom the dish is allegedly named. In this case,
Speaker 1: this was invented at Delmonico's. That's a restaurant Lemuel was
Speaker 1: said to have visited frequently. But this attribution actually predates
Speaker 1: the Lemuel Benedict story by about thirty years, and this
Speaker 1: version is one which Delmonico's continues to assert is true.
Speaker 1: In the Delmonico's head cheft, Bill Olivia told her reporter quote,
Speaker 1: what I know is simply that Mr and Mrs La
Speaker 1: Grand Benedict came all the time. They had eaten everything
Speaker 1: on the menu, and they were tired of the menu,
Speaker 1: and they asked the brothers to create something new. In
Speaker 1: this version of the story, the chef at the time,
Speaker 1: Charles Ranhofer, conferred with the brothers who owned the restaurant
Speaker 1: and they all came up with this dish. So rand
Speaker 1: Hoffer had published a cookbook in titled The Epicure in
Speaker 1: this had an eggs Benedict recipe in it, although it
Speaker 1: was called eggs Alla Benedict. That recipe reads quote cuts
Speaker 1: some muffins and halves cross wise, toast them without allowing
Speaker 1: to brown. Then place a round of cooked ham an
Speaker 1: eighth of an inch thick and of the same diameter
Speaker 1: as the muffins on each half heat in a moderate oven,
Speaker 1: and put a poached egg on each toast to cover
Speaker 1: the whole with hollandaise sauce. Yeah, and that the spelling
Speaker 1: of that, in case she couldn't hear, is different. It's
Speaker 1: not Benedict with a T on the end, but Benedict
Speaker 1: d I c K is the end of the name.
Speaker 1: So that only muddles the story a bit more. For
Speaker 1: a long time, a very long time, Lemuel Benedict's family,
Speaker 1: primarily his cousin's son, Jack Benedict, really advocated for Lemuel
Speaker 1: to be recognized as the originator of the dish. Jack
Speaker 1: Benedict also operated a restaurant in Colorado for a while
Speaker 1: called LC Benedict Restaurant in Tavern and he offered both
Speaker 1: Lemuel's version of the dish with bacon and toast and
Speaker 1: Oscar's version with ham in an English FM. So here's
Speaker 1: a tidbit for a little extra intrigue. Those two stories
Speaker 1: share more DNA than it initially appears. Oscar Sharkey worked
Speaker 1: at Delmonico's as a waiter before moving on to the Waldorf,
Speaker 1: and it's believed that he and Charles Ranhoff are worked
Speaker 1: together for at least some period of time, So it
Speaker 1: could have been a recipe that he already knew or
Speaker 1: that he remembered once he saw Lemuel Benedict put something
Speaker 1: similar together. We'll never really knew. Sharkey, who may be
Speaker 1: the subject of a future episode, never confirmed or denied
Speaker 1: the Lemuel version of the story during his lifetime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that four year is the key one where there's both
Speaker 1: the Delmonico's recipe book and the invention at the Waldorf.
Speaker 1: Uh So it's a little fuzzy. There is, though, also
Speaker 1: a third and much older possible attribution of the name.
Speaker 1: Pietro Orsini, better known as Pope Benedict the thirteen was
Speaker 1: said to have been put on a dietary regiment of
Speaker 1: toast and eggs because of chronic digestive issues, and he
Speaker 1: is said to have added a lemon based sauce to
Speaker 1: the otherwise rather boring dish. This version, devised during the
Speaker 1: time that Benedict the thirteen was head of the Catholic
Speaker 1: Church that was from seventeen thirty, is of course lacking
Speaker 1: the delicious bacon or ham component, and was like Lemuels
Speaker 1: on toast instead of English muffins. This was probably not
Speaker 1: called eggs Benedict either, and sodent only. The word brunch
Speaker 1: first appeared in print in eight and a Hunter's Weekly
Speaker 1: article in which author Guy Berenger made a case for
Speaker 1: a meal that offered an alternative to the usual traditions
Speaker 1: of early breakfasts or heavy Sunday dinners. Advocated that brunch
Speaker 1: was quote cheerful, sociable, and inciting. It is talk compelling.
Speaker 1: It puts you in a good temper. It makes you
Speaker 1: satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings. It sweeps away
Speaker 1: the worries and cobwebs of the week. This article was
Speaker 1: printed with a ps that read quote beer and whiskey
Speaker 1: are admitted as substitutes for tea and coffee. Berenger might
Speaker 1: be shocked at just how heavy brunch menus have become
Speaker 1: over the years. But the timing of this article and
Speaker 1: the timing of the Lemuel Benedict's story being so close
Speaker 1: together might explain how the egg dish became such a
Speaker 1: brunch standard. April sixt is incidentally Eggs Benedict Day. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna market on my calendar, and you better believe I'm
Speaker 1: making some. You can have it all woo, and I will.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we will cover another eponymous food.
Speaker 1: It is a salad and involves some seafood, and we'll
Speaker 1: do that right after we pause to hear from the sponsors.
Speaker 1: To keep stuff you missed in history class. Going next
Speaker 1: up is another food with a hotly contested origin story,
Speaker 1: and that is crab louis. You might see it spelled
Speaker 1: like Louis with an S or Louie with an E,
Speaker 1: but it is the same dish with either spelling, and
Speaker 1: it is pretty much always pronounced crab louie. It starts
Speaker 1: with a bed of iceberg lettuce, and on top of
Speaker 1: that is usually a combination of tomato, hard boiled eggs, asparagus,
Speaker 1: and crab. Some people also like to have lemon wedges,
Speaker 1: but the crab is dressed in Louie dressing, and that
Speaker 1: is where the magic happens. One very popular but now
Speaker 1: defunct San Francisco restaurant, so Laria's Grill described the crab
Speaker 1: and dressing preparation this way, quote take meat of crab
Speaker 1: in large piece, and dress with the following one third mayonnaise,
Speaker 1: two thirds chili sauce, small quantity chopped English chow chow,
Speaker 1: a little Worcester sauce, and minced tarragon, shallots and sweet parsley,
Speaker 1: season with salt and pepper, or keep on ice chow
Speaker 1: chow if you don't know, that's a pickled relish. It
Speaker 1: is fairly certain that Crab Louis popped up on the
Speaker 1: West Coast, because it is his storyally been made with
Speaker 1: Dungeoness crab, which comes from the waters off the west
Speaker 1: coast of North America, but exactly where it started depends
Speaker 1: on whose story you believe. There are several, although these
Speaker 1: ones mostly lack the level of details some of our
Speaker 1: other food origin stories include. So the first version we're
Speaker 1: gonna look at is the Washington State origin. There are
Speaker 1: two versions set there. One is pretty easily disproven with
Speaker 1: a quick fact check so that one claims that crab
Speaker 1: Louis existed in Seattle before nineteen o four. That data
Speaker 1: is used in a story that Enrico Caruso, the Operatic Tenor,
Speaker 1: visited Seattle on tour that year and eight at the
Speaker 1: Olympic Hotel. Sometimes this is told with the Olympic Club
Speaker 1: as the location. In this story, he was served crab
Speaker 1: Louis and then immediately was enamored of it. He said
Speaker 1: to have kept ordering more and more of it until
Speaker 1: the kitchen ran out of ingredients. But the problem is
Speaker 1: that Crusoe was not in Seattle in nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: he actually ever performed there. This version, though, doesn't offer
Speaker 1: any clues as to where the name would have come from.
Speaker 1: The second Washington State version places crab Louie's origin about
Speaker 1: two hundred seventy miles east of Seattle in Spokane, Washington. There,
Speaker 1: the Davenport Hotel opened in nineteen fourteen, and it had
Speaker 1: crab Louis on the menu when it opened. That was
Speaker 1: named for the owner, Llewellyn Louis Davenport, who moved to
Speaker 1: the Spokane Falls area from San Francisco in eighteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: The Davenport, incidentally, is also still around, although it is
Speaker 1: now the Historic Davenport and it's part of a bigger
Speaker 1: hotel group, and they still serve crab Louis and they
Speaker 1: keep their dressing recipe a secret to this day. San
Speaker 1: Francisco is a fairly serious claim to the invention of
Speaker 1: this crab salad with pink dressing. A menu from a
Speaker 1: restaurant called Burge Frank's Old Poodle Dog from nineteen o
Speaker 1: eight had crab leg A Lla Louie on the menu.
Speaker 1: It got the name from the chef Fluis Coutard, and
Speaker 1: then Coutart had actually died before the restaurant opened, so
Speaker 1: this was probably named in honor of him to keep
Speaker 1: the public associating his established name on the San Francisco
Speaker 1: food scene with this new eatery. But calling the Old
Speaker 1: Poodle Dog Knew is not entirely accurate. So the Old
Speaker 1: Poodle Dog was a sort of phoenix from the Ashes story.
Speaker 1: There had been a Poodle Dog restaurant before the earthquake
Speaker 1: and fires of nineteen o six, which we have talked
Speaker 1: about on the show. Before. Burget Frank's Old Poodle Dog
Speaker 1: was a joint venture of several restauranturs who had lost
Speaker 1: their businesses in the fire. Louis Quittard had made a
Speaker 1: name for himself as the head chef at Frank's Rotisserie,
Speaker 1: the other burned restaurants that had been reborn in this
Speaker 1: collaborative effort where the Bourget and the Poodle Dog. Another
Speaker 1: San Francisco restaurant also laid claim to the invention of
Speaker 1: crab Louis, and that was so Lari's grill. That's the
Speaker 1: one that we mentioned at the beginning of this segment.
Speaker 1: The year nine teen ten is sometimes mentioned here, but
Speaker 1: the first time we can prove it was served there
Speaker 1: was in nineteen fourteen, regardless though that link to Louis
Speaker 1: Guitard would have been already established at that point. Yes,
Speaker 1: so that seems a little late. Uh. Food historian Erica J. Peters,
Speaker 1: who wrote the book San Francisco, a Food History, gave
Speaker 1: a talk at the San Francisco Public Library and Feen
Speaker 1: about the origins of crab Louis. You can actually find
Speaker 1: that online. She talked about Louis Coutard and the belief
Speaker 1: that he had actually started using chili sauce with creamy
Speaker 1: mayonnaise to dress crab way back at Frank's rotisserie, even
Speaker 1: before the earthquake and fires, although that dish was not
Speaker 1: yet named for him. Then. In nineteen nineteen, another San
Speaker 1: Francisco chef, Victor Herzler, wrote the Hotel St. Francis Cookbook
Speaker 1: in that he included a variation on crab Louis, which
Speaker 1: he called crab a la Louise. His recipe directs cooks
Speaker 1: to quote use small fancy fish plates or salad plates
Speaker 1: lay on each plates. Slices of the white hearts of
Speaker 1: firm heads of lettuce lay on top. Some canned Spanish
Speaker 1: pimentos using the brilliant red variety, which is sweet. On
Speaker 1: top of this placed the crab meat, taking care not
Speaker 1: to break it too small. Overall poor French dressing made
Speaker 1: with tarragon vinegar well seasoned with freshly ground pepper. That
Speaker 1: version obviously switches out chili sauce for pimentos, which is
Speaker 1: probably why Hurzler shifted the name to Louise instead of Louis.
Speaker 1: An earlier variation, published in the pan Pacific Cookbook in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen, to coincide with the Panama Pacific International Exposition,
Speaker 1: made another switch out. That one calls for ketchup instead
Speaker 1: of chili sauce. There's another contender here, though, that is Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 1: In Lve, the Portland Council of Jewish Women's Neighborhood cookbook
Speaker 1: featured a recipe for crab Louis. This one just had lettuce,
Speaker 1: hard boiled eggs and crab meat, and the Louis dressing
Speaker 1: is a little of frint. That is three tablespoons of oil,
Speaker 1: one tablespoon of vinegar, half a tablespoon of ketchup, two
Speaker 1: tea spoons of Worcestershire sauce, paprika salt, and a tad
Speaker 1: of English mustard. Fame chef and cookbook author James Beard
Speaker 1: believed that the dish probably wasn't invented in Portland, but
Speaker 1: it was at its finest in Portland at a restaurant
Speaker 1: called The Bohemian that he frequented, and he included this
Speaker 1: dish in his cookbook Or Derves and Kind of Bays,
Speaker 1: as well as subsequent books, making little tweaks to the
Speaker 1: recipe each time. So the earliest written evidence for crab
Speaker 1: Louie's origin does indeed seem to be San Francisco. In
Speaker 1: the nod to Louis guitar, but the dish spread and
Speaker 1: popularity really quickly in the early nineteen hundreds. How he
Speaker 1: found a nineteen fifteen newspaper ad for a Thanksgiving feast
Speaker 1: in Bakersfield, California, almost three hundred miles south of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: which featured Crab Louis Is one of its offerings. So
Speaker 1: by that time that was well known enough to he
Speaker 1: considered a draw for holiday customers that was incidentally at
Speaker 1: the St. Francis Cafe, different apparently from the Hotel St.
Speaker 1: Francis in San Francisco, though the proprietor was named Louis Allen.
Speaker 1: There's so many Louis. There are also some theories that
Speaker 1: you'll see that it was actually named for Louis the
Speaker 1: fourteenth because of his exceptional love of food, but we
Speaker 1: don't have any evidence that it actually exists in them
Speaker 1: or that anybody named it specifically after him. I did
Speaker 1: not find any sort of international or national day that's
Speaker 1: Crab Louis Day, but that seems like a horrible oversight
Speaker 1: on on the world's first. Every day is Crab Louis Day. Um.
Speaker 1: I love talking about food. I have so many things
Speaker 1: to talk about in the behind the scenes on this one,
Speaker 1: including an idea I had while we were reading. But
Speaker 1: before we do that, I'm gonna do a listener mail.
Speaker 1: And this is from our listeners, Zach, who writes high
Speaker 1: there and Happy New Year. I loved y'all's recent episode
Speaker 1: about snowflake photography. While listening to it, I remembered an
Speaker 1: odd book of water crystal photos on my art shelf,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't recall if it was by Bentley or not.
Speaker 1: Then when I went to have a look, it was
Speaker 1: so much weirder than I remembered that I've felt I
Speaker 1: had to share it with you. These are photos taken
Speaker 1: of individual water crystals formed after being exposed to various
Speaker 1: stimuli such as music, semi plausible and abstract concepts such
Speaker 1: as beauty, truth, et cetera. Somehow, I think this whole
Speaker 1: concept fits rather nicely into Bentley's worldview. I can almost
Speaker 1: imagine him writing about this project in a scientific magazine.
Speaker 1: I'm attaching a few pictures for your enjoyment. Also one
Speaker 1: of my cats, Johnny, is seventeen and an operatic countertenor,
Speaker 1: among many other professions. Here he is reading Sherlock Holme
Speaker 1: stories there's another cat, Ruby and intrepid tripod Tabby. She
Speaker 1: does not like to have her picture taken. I hope
Speaker 1: y'all are having a lovely holiday season and that two
Speaker 1: starts off with ease. Thanks for keeping the podcast going, Zach,
Speaker 1: thank you so much because one adorable kiddies, but too,
Speaker 1: This is very cool and I think you're right. I
Speaker 1: think Bentley would be delighted as heck over these strangely
Speaker 1: stimulated ice crisp um. It kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: the experiment that you we have all probably seen pictures
Speaker 1: of online at various points where spiders were given various
Speaker 1: different um drugs or stimulants and then they did their webs.
Speaker 1: It's like that, except it's ice. Uh, there's no actual
Speaker 1: animal involved of any kind. But it's very fascinating. If
Speaker 1: you would like to write to us with fascinating things
Speaker 1: or just mundane things that you think might be interesting
Speaker 1: to us, that's cool. You can do that at History
Speaker 1: Podcast at iHeart radio dot com. You can also find
Speaker 1: us on social media as Missed in History, and you
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