"Chopped cheese isn't a Philly cheesesteak nor is it similar. This is New York, not Philly, bro!" Romel Bruno/Serious Eats
This is a story of the harmonious blending of cultures that is the very best aspect of America, and which creates new cultures, and local pride, which can then, of course degenerate into culture wars. It's the story of a sandwich - the Chopped cheese of New York. Not even New York as a whole but of Spanish Harlem - not even Harlem.
Local. And it's a relatively new story too.
This is Frankie Frank who claims to be the inventor of the Chopped cheese. He is of Mexican origin and works in the Blue Sky Deli in Spanish Harlem, more commonly known as Hajji's Deli because it is owned by Yeminis. In fact in this part of New York most of the bodegas as they are known there are owned by Yemeni immigrants - a very specific group it seems to me.
I will come back to Frankie Frank, Hajji's Deli and the Chopped cheese, but, because I learnt a few odd things along the way I will pause a moment with my first new thing - Bodega.
What is a bodega? Well it depends where you are: in Spain it's a wine cellar (or a wine shop); in the Philippines it's a storehouse/warehouse; in New York it's a convenience store much like our Milk Bars and in Melbourne it's Bodega Underground a buzzy city Mexican bar and taco place.
Not important I know but interesting how one Spanish word can be applied to different things. I suppose what they have in common - well the first three at least are places to store things. Then trendy restaurants, bars and cafés latch on to such distantly related names for their venues.
Then there's the Yemeni connection which is actually twofold. The first being the already mentioned fact that the bodegas in this area of New York are mostly owned by Yemeni immigrants. These immigrants began to arrive in the late 19th century with many gaining citizenship by fighting for the USA in both World Wars. It seems they often settle in existing Lebanese communities.
Then there's the second aspect of the Yemeni connection - a Yemeni dish that is called dagha yamneeya with one version shown here. It was described as a kind of Yemini sandwich - the bread being a flatbread made with ground beef. No cheese though, and none of the pictures I found showed it as anything remotely resembling a sandwich and only a couple showed it with bread alongside. So I really think this is a very suspect connection. The only common thing being the chopped meat. One Nick Evans on the Simply Recipes website also adds to the Yemeni connection by saying:
"the “chopped” part could trace to the action of chopping ingredients as they cook to mix them up, a cooking technique familiar to the Yemeni immigrants who run many bodegas in New York."
Which takes me back to the Chopped cheese. Bodegas serve fast food - sandwiches, hamburgers and the like. Which takes me back to Frankie Frank who wanted to make a cheese hamburger for lunch sometime in the 1990s. However, they had run out of hamburger buns and only had hero rolls (I will come to that) which are long in shape, and so he chopped up the meat with some onions, melted the cheese on top and added some tomatoes and lettuce. Apparently delicious and so a new New York icon was born. This happened back in the 90s, but it was such a local thing that New Yorker Anthony Bourdain, in a 2014 episode of his series Parts Unknown said he had never heard of it. The picture is the 'real' thing.
So what is a Chopped cheese sandwich? Romel Bruno of Serious Eats will take you through the whole thing but Nick Evans gives a good general summary:
"At its core, a good chopped cheese is a mixture of beef, seasonings, and onions, cooked on a griddle and then “chopped” with the side of a large spatula as it griddles. Cheese is added on top until it melts, then it’s all transferred to a sturdy bun with some veggie toppings like tomatoes and lettuce."
However. There are a few specific things which are worth commenting on.
First the bun - the hero bun or the hoagie as it is sometimes called. It's a crispy sort of bun and with a long shape. Moreover it is prepared in a very specific way. It seems that you slice it in half lengthways, but not quite all the way through. Then you toast it. J. Kenji López-Alt has an interesting way of doing this which he demonstrates in a video in his tiny temporary kitchen, where the camera switches from one side of the kitchen to the other at such speed that sometimes it makes you dizzy. He heats up one small cast iron frying pan, places the bun - now closed into it, puts another heavy cast-iron and heated pan on top and then leaves it to cook whilst he does the rest. It was there for a few minutes and only had a little bit of charring underneath at the end. But of course, you can just toast the bun anyway you like. In fact his colleague Bruno Romel opened the buns before toasting so that both sides got toasted. I got the impression that it needs to be crispy.
Seasoning. Nick Evans said you need beef, seasonings, and onions. Some recipes didn't do anything much in the way of seasoning - salt and pepper, but one traveller who tried the Hajji's Deli version described the seasonings as secret. Many, including Romel Bruno were more specific and mentioned two alternative - and I think Latin American - seasonings - adobo and sazón - Adobo on the left from Luci on the Allrecipes website, and Sazón on the right from the Ambitious Kitchen website. Similar but different I think and although you might be able to buy them online, I doubt you can buy them readymade anywhere easy here in Australia.
And J. Kenji López-Alt didn't seem to add either in his video - he just added some chopped pickled chillis I think. So maybe it's alright to just add (or not) what you feel like.
American cheese - that's Kraft cheese slices to us - processed cheese - not real cheese but if you are recoiling in horror, Romel Bruno insists:
"There’s only one cheese that’s acceptable here and it’s American. In all my years of eating chopped cheese in New York, this is the only cheese I’ve come across in the sandwich. Its meltability and gooeyness—a texture some might even describe as “plasticky”—is truly unrivaled."
You add it to your fatty hamburger patty and fried onions, that have been chopped together, as the last stage of the cooking. Spread some mayonnaise and ketchup - or whatever you fancy on the bottom half of the roll, put your meat and cheese on top and then tomatoes and lettuce on top. Cover with the top side and press down. You might think you are done - but you are not.
Wrap in foil Romel Bruno of Serious Eats is not alone in insisting on this particular step. He explains:
"it’s crucial to bundle up your chopped cheese tightly in foil to trap the residual heat and steam. This keeps the sandwich hotter for longer and guarantees that the cheese—the glue holding the sandwich’s contents together—melts properly. It also steams the bread, softening it just enough that it's pillowy and tender, not cold and stale."
Genevieve Yam, also on the Serious Eats site has a whole article on the topic of wrapping sandwiches. For some cold sandwiches too. Who knew?
What about those culture wars I mentioned in my heading? Well after the good bit of the melting pot that is America, absorbing a bit of Yemeni into the established mix of a specific part of New York, and after news of this wonderful new sandwich had spread, everyone of course tried to get in on the act and the inevitable variations started to multiply. Nobody came to blows over it all, but there was vitriol particularly when this food of the poor moved into posh restaurants:
"Once we add truffles, blue cheese, and balsamic-glazed red onions we are no longer in chopped cheese territory. Those fancy-pants ingredients may make a tasty sandwich, but it’s certainly not chopped cheese. Chopped cheese is food for the people. Once it costs more than $12, it’s for the 1%. That's hella capitalism." Bruno Romel/Serious Eats
There was also a bit of pushback from Philadelphia which has the Philly cheesesteak but it's not the same - it's made from real steak, not mince, and the cheese is either Italian or the gruesome Cheeze Whiz which I think comes out of a tube.
It's sort of curious isn't it how protective the creators of such local foods are even though at the same time you would think they must be proud of their success and the Chopped cheese - otherwise known as "The Everything" I believe, has certainly travelled all over America and I noted at least one Canadian version. Out in Moonee Ponds there is an American sandwich shop called Pretty Boy Floyd which serves a Chopped cheese, so maybe it will soon be everywhere here too. Besides as I have frequently said, none of us can resist fiddling with somebody else's recipe. We like to personalise things, make them our own. Certainly I suspect that J. Kenji López Alt's video version was not strictly authentic - although interesting. If only for the way he peeled an onion.
And here's another fun fact about this 'cultural appropriation' which is apparently called Columbusing:
“the act of discovering something that is new to you but familiar to another group, especially a minority group, and behaving as though it is new to everyone.”
I'm guessing it's named after Christopher Columbus?
So much to learn - even if it is trivial - from one particular kind of hot sandwich - in the broadest sense of the word.
POSTSCRIPT
August 28 - my younger granddaughter's 15th birthday today. Happy birthday Zoe.
2023 - Deliciously English - "sometimes it takes years of looking at other countries to realise how wonderful your own actually is." says Jamie Oliver
2022 - Nothing
2020 - More than marmalade
2019 - Nothing
2017 - Nothing
2016 - Buy when it's cheap
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