Every great city deserves an easily identifiable sandwich of its own. Whether it’s the Philadelphia cheesesteak or the New Orleans po’boy, a gut-busting sandwich is a matter of civic pride.
When most people think of Chicago’s sandwich of choice, the first answer is usually the Italian beef sandwich. (Unless you are one of those people who thinks a hot dog is a sandwich.) After all, you can find one in most neighborhoods, and locals love to argue relentlessly about where to find the best. The popularity of the sandwich has only grown recently thanks to “The Bear,” an FX show that follows a fine dining chef who has to return to his family’s Italian beef stand.
But looking through the Tribune’s archives, it’s a bit shocking to find that the Italian beef hasn’t been the obvious sandwich choice for that long. Unlike barbecue, which shows up in the archives all the way back in the 1850s, the Italian beef doesn’t even make an appearance until the 1950s.
Chicagoans were eating sandwiches with beef long before then, though. It’s just that they were either roast beef sandwiches or, more likely, corned beef sandwiches.
As critic Louisa Chu explained well back in 2019, “Chicago is a corned beef town, unlike New York, Los Angeles or Montreal, where they prefer pastrami.” While true today, Chicagoans were apparently even more obsessed with corned beef in the early 20th century.
That was when John P. Harding, also known as “Corned Beef John,” had 12 restaurants downtown serving the dish, including Harding Grill (131 N. Clark St.) and Harding’s Colonial Room (21 S. Wabash Ave.). According to an article from Sept. 22, 1922, Harding “started the craze for the ‘make ’em before your eyes’ corned beef sandwich.” An article from Aug. 15, 1926, went even further, claiming his “chief bid for fame, however, is in having made the corned beef sandwich what it is today.”
The Tribune loved to throw superlatives at Harding. He transformed the Star Theater at 68 W. Madison into a restaurant in 1918, and when he planned to open another downtown restaurant, the paper felt the need to write this: “Mr. Harding four years ago answered in the affirmative the momentous question: ‘Is the corned beef sandwich mightier than the movies.’”
Corned beef also made Harding a very rich man. On Dec. 4, 1928, the Tribune referred to Harding as a “millionaire restaurant owner,” while noting how he wielded a knife “dexterously” when he “carved corned beef for fifty guests at a dinner given last night in honor of Harry Hackney of Atlantic City, president of the National Restaurant Association.”
So when did the Italian beef overtake corned beef? The 1920s is when many of the Italian beef origin stories pop up, with both Pasquale Scala and Tony Ferreri mentioned as possibly inventing the dish. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any mentions in the Tribune archive during that time period.
[ The ultimate guide to Chicago’s Italian beef ]
In fact, the first clear mention of the Italian beef that I was able to find wasn’t until June 28, 1953. It wasn’t exactly a grand introduction. The very short post, titled “Old Peoples Home Aids Plan Benefit Picnic,” explains how “the ladies auxiliary and men’s league of Villa Scalabrini will hold their second annual picnic at noon next Sunday at the villa in Northlake … Italian beef and sausage sandwiches and spumoni will be served [to] guests.” That’s it.
According to “The Chicago Food Encyclopedia,” the origins of the Italian beef probably weren’t from either Scala or Ferreri, but instead “lie in Italian American home cooking.” In particular, the book points to “so-called ‘peanut weddings’”…
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