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
