Famous Foods, Legendary Lodging
By David Wilkening

   Most people probably know that the Waldorf salad was named after one of the most famous hotels in the world. Also, that the Sacher Torte came from the Sacher Hotel in Vienna. And of course everyone knows the roots of the Singapore Sling.

   But there are some hotels, perhaps gluttons for punishment, who have more than one example of food/drink associated with them. The Parker House in Boston, for example.

   “The Boston Cream Pie -- now the official dessert of the state of Massachusetts -- was perfected and popularized in 19th century Parker House kitchens,” says Christian S. Watkins of Weber Shandick Dallas, the PR agency representing the hotel. “Also, the internationally-known Park House rolls were inspired by an in-house German baker.”

   One caveat in this whole matter: The history of food-drink linked historically with hotels is not a heavily documented one. There is often more than one version of how a dish or drink got its name. But some stories are generally accepted. The classic combination of American fruit salad with apples, lemon juice, celery, walnuts and mayonnaise we know as Waldorf salad, for example.

   “Oscar Michel Tschirky created this salad for the opening of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria on March 8, 1893,” says Linda Stradley, a food writer-editor who has written several books on the subject. Stradley says no one is quite sure whether Tschirky was a chef, maitre d’ or banquet manager…or possibly all three. But there’s little doubt about his genius and he was famed in his time as “Oscar at the Waldorf.” When he wrote his own cookbook, he described the salad as having two raw apples mixed with celery. “The salad must be dressed with good mayonnaise,” he cautioned. He is also generally given credit for coming up with another perhaps equally famous dish: Eggs Benedict.

   “In 1894, Lemuel Benedict, a Wall Street broker who was suffering from a hangover, ordered some buttered toast, crisp bacon, two poached eggs and Hollandaise sauce at the Waldorf Hotel,” wrote the New Yorker Magazine. “The Waldorf’s legendary chef, Oscar Tschirky, was so impressed that he put the dish on his breakfast and luncheon menus after substituting Canadian bacon for crisp bacon and a toasted English muffin for toasted bread,” the magazine continued in its “Talk of the Town” column in 1942. And the Sacher Torte?

   “The original Sacher Torte has been the most famous cake of the world since 1832 and the original recipe a well-kept secret of our hotel,” says the five-star hotel’s Web site. In the early 1800s, famous diplomat Prince Klemens van Metternich complained he was tired or the usually whipped crème creations called tortes served in Vienna. He ordered his favorite pastry chef to come up with something different for a special occasion. Since the chef was ill, the job fell to Franz Sacher, who was only 16 years old and working as an apprentice. Sacher came up with a new taste in pastry -- two layers of a slightly bitter chocolate cake with a puree of apricot jam connecting them, all covered in a shiny dark chocolate. He added a drop of whipped cream Austrians call “Schagober.” To this day, that’s the recipe for the Sacher Torte. There are up to 800 pieces of the famous Torte produced daily. At Christmas time, hotel personnel can’t keep up with the demand for 3,000 pieces a day shipped all over the world.

   Then, there’s Peach Melba, which may have been invented by someone often called “the greatest chef who ever lived.” Auguste Escoffier worked at the Ritz Hotel in London in the early 1900s when he created a dessert of poached peach halves, vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce in honor of Dame Nellie Melba, an Australian opera star. Escoffier is also credited with creating traditionally brittle Melba toast, also in honor of the singer who performed regularly at London’s Covent Garden.

   Another dessert, Baked Alaska, is generally believed to have been introduced into France by Chef Pierre Balzac of the Grand Hotel in Paris in the early part of the 20th century. A visiting Chinese tourist group taught the chef how to bake ice cream in a pastry crust, according to Baron Leon Brise, a French food writer of the time.

   Another Cleveland Hotel has its own perhaps more modest claim to fame.“The Brown Hotel in Lexington started the famous ‘Hot Brown’ sandwich. You can ask anyone about it because it’s a legend anywhere in Kentucky,” says Samantha Fryberger, communications director for the Convention & Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland.

   “The Hot Brown sandwich is a hot, open-faced turkey sandwich and very famous in and out of the state,” adds Susan Dallas, marketing communications manager of the Greater Louisville Convention & Visitors Bureau. That’s clear perhaps, but Chicken a la King may be more typical of how many foods have more than one story about their founding.

   One plausible story, however, is that the dish was named after James E. Keene, a London-born American staying at London’s Claridge Hotel in 1881 just after his thoroughbred horse won a major race in Paris. Another story: “Chef George Greenwald made it for Mr. and Mrs. E. Clark King at the Brighton Beach Hotel in New York City around 1898,” says Stradley.

   The world-famous chef’s salad’s origins is not precisely known either, but it’s very possible Louis Diat, chef of the Ritz-Carlton in New York during the 1940s, originated the dish, according to writer John Mariani whose books include “American Food: The Gastronomic Story.” “The origin of this salad is not, apparently, a matter of record, but it may have been made first in the kitchen of the Ritz-Carlton where a recipe used by Louis Diat called for smoked ox tongue as one of the meats, and watercress as the only green leaf.”

   Another not as well-known dish, the Woolton Pie, is a root vegetable pie. Fred Marquis or Lord Woolton was the British Minister of Food during World War II and created the dish at the Savoy Hotel in London to encourage war-weary Brits to be happy on diets of less meat, according to some accounts.

   Everyone knows Thousand Island dressing, which is generally traced to the 1000 islands of New York State. A fishing guide, George La Londe, took fishermen out looking for Black Bass and Northern Pike in the early part of the 20th century. After a day of fishing, he and his wife, Sophia, would serve what they called “shore dinners” at their Herald Hotel with a different and unusual dressing. One couple, a prominent New York actress and her husband, a famous cook, were so impressed with the dressing they asked for its recipe. Sophia LaLonde termed it “Thousand Island.” The visiting couple took the recipe back to New York City where they turned it over to the owners of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where it was put on the restaurant menu. More than 30 years ago, Allen and Susan Benas purchased the Herald Hotel and changed its name to the Thousand Islands Inn. Perhaps needless to say, it’s now the official house dressing. And the Benas now bottle and sell it at the inn and on the internet.

   Another familiar dressing, Green Goddess, may have been created at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel (now the Sheraton-Palace). “The hotel chef named the dressing for English actor George Arliss, who stayed there while performing in the play called ‘The Green Goddess,’’’ writes J. J. Schnebel in his book “Who Cooked That Up?”

   When it comes to drinks, no less than the Bloody Mary could very well have been invented at the St. Regis Hotel’s King Cole Bar. Bartender Fernand Pete Petiot added pepper, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, lemon, lime and horseradish to vodka and tomato juice in 1921. He promoted the drink as a hangover cure. “It was suggested we call the drink ‘Bloody Mary’ because it reminded me of the Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago, and a girl there named Mary,” Petiot told food historians.

   The Singapore Sling was created around 1910 at Raffles Long Bar, according to various food historians. Even the Martini, however, has hotel connections. By some accounts, Martini de Arma di Taggis, the principal bartender at the Knickerbocker Hotel at the turn of the century, is given credit. It is likely he at least played a role in its development by being the first bartender credited with mixing dry gin with dry vermouth. So bottoms up to all those known and unknown inventors.