The first corned beef egg roll was put together in 1978 by Kim White, a Vietnamese immigrant and onetime deli employee. A surfeit of corned-beef scraps might seem an unlikely problem, but in the late 1960s and through the ‘70s, Detroit had a robust corned-beef culture, with Jewish delis and corned-beef shops everywhere. In many ways, White’s creation mirrors the origin story of Detroit’s venerable coney dog: Exactly 100 years ago, in 1917, newly arrived Macedonian immigrants in Coney Island, Brooklyn, ladled a near-flood of thin beefheart chili across a frankfurter and steamed bun, then topped it with a handful of diced onions and a few healthy streaks of mustard. In doing so, they created a food that, when transplanted by Greek and Macedonian diner owners to Detroit, became so beloved that there are now “coney islands”—small, diner-like restaurants that take their name from the iconic hot dog—on seemingly every street corner in the city. Similarly, the corned beef egg roll White made put a little immigrant twist on an already-popular staple.
