Kentucky Hot Brown Is 'the Ultimate Drunk Food'

[X-Files]

Editor's note: The Southern Foodways Alliance delves deep in the history, tradition, heroes and plain old deliciousness of Southern food. Writer Sarah Baird grew up in Kentucky and lives in New Orleans. Her first book, "Kentucky Sweets: Bourbon, Spoonbread, and Mile High Pie," was published earlier this year.

Drenched in gooey cheese, anchored by salty meat, and with enough thick bread to sop it all up, the Hot Brown is quite possibly the ultimate drunk food.

Over the years, the sandwich has not only reached far across the Commonwealth as a go-to remedy for a night of hard drinking, but has become the sandwich ambassador of Louisville’s dining scene. Crafted almost 100 years ago in one of the city’s finest grand hotels, the Brown (which is regal enough to give any Wes Anderson creation a run for its money), its decadence has become a thing of legend.

 

The story goes that in 1926, the Brown’s executive chef Fred K. Schmidt was looking for a luxurious, late-night food to feed to the thousands of dancers and merrymakers coming to the hotel each week. Not wanting the fall back on the old standby of ham and eggs, Schmidt crafted his take on a traditional Welsh Rarebit: an open-faced turkey sandwich on thick white bread covered in a thick, bubbly Mornay sauce.

 

http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2014/04/29/kentucky-hot-brown-recipe/?hpt=ea_r5

[Murph]

Wow! That could be good....