We’re starting to hear those discussions around corned beef egg roll purveyors, too. As with the later generations of Detroit pizza makers, you’ll find chefs’ unique imprints on the dish at different spots throughout the area. In some restaurants, they’re referred to as “Reuben” or “Irish” egg rolls. One example of the latter, at McShane’s Irish Pub, includes potato. It’s a minor addition, and it’s still a corned beef egg roll at its core, but it’s clearly a McShane’s roll. And that sort of evolution is a sign that Detroit’s own egg roll is growing into something more than just a beloved local delicacy—it’s well on its way to becoming southeast Michigan’s next regional dish. Cereal as Health Food
“America at the turn of the century was just as vast and varied as it is now,” explains historic gastronomist Sarah Lohman. “Fannie Farmer’s The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, from 1906, which I think is a decent judge of what the average, multi-generational, Midwestern or New England American family is eating or aspiring to eat, is showing a meal that includes: fruit; hot cereal like Quaker oats or hominy; a substantial meat like beefsteak, ‘warmed over lamb,’ or broiled halibut; potatoes, toast, or muffins; or, of course, coffee.” In other words, a breakfast of just hominy or porridge was considered a nutritionally unbalanced poor family’s breakfast—not exactly something you’d aspire to. Cereal changed all of that.
