The path to a better Reuben

The Reuben has its roots in a Jewish-American delicatessen, no matter the telling of its origin. It didn’t come from the biblical character Reuben, nor the tribe that bore his name, but rather a man, owning one deli or another in New York or Omaha, who had the sandwich named after himself, or the deli he worked in.

The name of a sandwich is one of those things best left to the Food Network to discern. It’s mostly folklore and local pride that dictates which story is out there to believe. I’m a man who loves sandwiches, though, and I don’t care who invented them, so long as I can get the best version of the sandwich possible.

 The various components of a Reuben, when constructed properly, are actually quite healthy for the digestive tract. Rye bread, Swiss cheese and sauerkraut are all alive with probiotics. The other two components, corned beef and Russian dressing may be lacking in the health department, though they do provide much of the flavor.

All combined, they produce a deli favorite. I am of the opinion that a system, like a batting order, a production line or even a sandwich, is only as strong as its weakest part. With that in mind, what is the best Reuben we can make?

Bread

Rye bread, aside from being the nickname of every Ryan the world over, is a low gluten, high protein alternative to the traditional slice. It is common in Scandinavia, and is often mixed with wheat in the baking process. Rye doesn’t rise like traditional breads, and mixing in an alternative flour is a way to make an attractive loaf.
Russian dressing is based on a blend of mayonnaise and ketchup, seasoned with, perhaps horseradish or hot sauce. Depending on what you mix with the ketchup and mayo, it could end up as Thousand Island, if that gives you an idea where we are going.
Kraut seems like one of those things one makes fun of for being awful. At least, that was my experience. My grandfather made his own sauerkraut in the basement of their home on the leak, and it smelled worse than the fish cleaning cabin. That’s MY experience with sauerkraut, as it is with my cousins. I’m sure that most others in the world view it more positively.
Despite having "Swiss" in the name, there isn't much Swiss about Swiss cheese. It was invented in the United States and called such because it looks like Emmental, which actually is Swiss. At least it's modeled after something Swiss, which makes it truer to its name than Russian dressing.
Finally, here we are at the literal meat of the matter. Corned beef is not named after corn at all. Instead, it is kind of like the world’s first Spam. The “corn” in the name likely refers to the large salt granules used in the preservation process. Corned beef was brined and preserved for shipment overseas, turning corned beef into one of the first mass produced lunch meats.

That said, all rye flour makes pumpernickel, and Reubens aren’t generally made with pumpernickel. There are a lot of ways to make rye bread, and we will want to make sure we aren’t veering too far towards wheat bread. There are often seeds or other foreign bodies added to rye in order to give texture or accentuate the existing flavor.

There aren’t a lot of surveys as to the best rye bread in America, but there is one. Saveur, a food and travel blog, points to the rye from Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, Michigan as having the best deli rye, thanks to a crisp surface and punctuated with caraway and caramelized onions. In fact, Zingerman’s uses their bread on a housemade sandwich that includes Russian dressing. It sounds like we have our bread.

Russian Dressing

It’s tough to call any mayo-ketchup blend better than another, thought we can account for what is mixed in with those primary ingredients. Martha Stewart has a fairly tame version of the sauce, with only pickle relish, a dash of lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce, with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. This won’t get in the way of the other strong flavors in the sandwich.

Sauerkraut

I'm not entirely sure how anyone boiled cabbage, pickled it, smelled it and still decided it would be good for eating. It is just cabbage, though, and the fermentation process brings out some of the probiotic elements of the food. Intentional or not, sauerkraut is mostly good for you, even if it sounds like something you would eat on a dare.

Most research I have found says that authentic German sauerkraut is the best, but when you look at recipes for it, one of the elements of making authentic German sauerkraut is to remove the kraut from the jar. I know my grandfather, rest his soul, made it from scratch. I have the still singed nose hair to prove it. Lets compromise and say that the best kraut is from an authentic German market, which you would likely find in rural middle-America. Failing that, Kuhne barrel sauerkraut gets good reviews.

Swiss Cheese

The cheese, like sauerkraut, undergoes a fermentation process, in which the bacteria naturally endemic to cheeses consumes the lactic acid, which release gasses like carbon dioxide, which in turn cause bubbles late in the manufacturing process. When sliced, those bubbles look like holes.

The longer cheese is allowed to ferment, the larger the holes become, so you might think that the best cheeses are the ones with giant holes. Those don’t exist, though, not anymore. The federal government actually restricts the size of the holes, which is probably not a bad thing for a couple of reasons. First, the large holes don’t slice in industrial slicers, and second, you migght end up with a bunch of holes on your sandwich, instead of cheese.

The reason that the hole restriction is in place is that there is a theory, so far bearing itself out, that the bubbles initiate around imperfections and particles. Be grateful that the cheese is cleaner, but be sad about the reduced fermentation time. Unless you go to Switzerland, you aren’t going to find anything as pungent as Emmental in America any more. Choose your favorite deli sliced cheese, because the government caps how delicious it can be.

Corned Beef

There are two different styles, a richer Jewish variety, and a more briny Irish variety. For the purposes of a Reuben, there are two solid reasons to opt for Jewish style corned beef. First, regardless of the story behind the Reuben’s invention, it was created in a Jewish deli. Second, sauerkraut on rye with briny meat sounds unpalatable.

Regardless of the variety of corned beef, USA Today insists that the Detroit area is a hotbed of quality corned beef. For some reason, all the best components for a Reuben seem to be found in Lower Michigan. If you want the very best of this American staple, it sounds like you might just want to head to the Wolverine State