Where Can I Get a Chopped Cheese Outside Nyc
The Chopped Cheese's Sharp Rise to Fame
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The chopped cheese is a New York success story — with a somewhat charged twist.
The sandwich, also called a chop cheese — ground beef with onions, topped by melted cheese and served with lettuce, tomatoes and condiments on a hero roll — has long been a staple of bodegas in Harlem and the Bronx. Now, it has started migrating from grill tops to restaurant menus, from the lyrics of rappers onto the pages of food blogs.
But this wider recognition has come with a side of controversy.
In June, a video made by a 20-year-old man from Harlem as a retort to a segment about the sandwich went viral, igniting a discussion about culture and privilege. The news that a new restaurant on the Upper West Side would feature a version costing more than $10 provoked another round of criticism.
Grab a seat, preferably a park bench. This is a story about how in a country in the midst of a roiling debate about race and class, a sandwich is not just a sandwich.
Origins
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The bodega in East Harlem looks like many others, its awning advertising coffee, candy, and hot and cold sandwiches. But it is the chopped cheese that draws people from far away.
This bodega, Hajji's, is in the midst of a name change to Harlem Taste, an effort, perhaps, to harness its reputation as the birthplace of the sandwich.
As with many food dishes, the chopped cheese's origin is obscured by rumor. Perhaps it was an attempt at a Philadelphia cheesesteak without the right ingredients, or the result of a creative flurry in the hands of an inebriated chef. Whatever it was, it seems to have been born at the intersection of taste and necessity.
But talk to some of the workers at Hajji's and they will tell you about Carlos Soto, a longtime deli man who they said died of cancer in 2014. Carlos created the sandwich at some point during his more than 20 years working at the store, they said.
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There are a few versions of the story. In one, Carlos chopped a cheeseburger to fit a hero roll after running out of circular buns. Another holds that Yemeni workers came up with the sandwich along with Carlos, perhaps bringing some techniques from their home country. A third posits that Carlos had dental issues and was trying to make a burger easier to chew.
Sam Moslih, who works evenings at the bodega, said someone had seen the creation and asked Carlos to make one. "And," he continued, "it just went from there."
Fame
For years, the sandwich enjoyed a below-the-radar kind of renown, savored by those who grew up eating it at bodegas across the city, unknown to many others — and fetishized by a few.
Soon as I step out my building, they like I need that / Hajji's for dinner, them chopped cheese I still eat that
— The Harlem rapper Dave East in the song "Nino"
Usually costing $4 or $5, the sandwich has the qualities of what scientists call an emergent property — it is greater than the sum of its parts. Fans of the food say part of its appeal is that it is infinitely customizable.
"It's not supposed to be a gourmet item," said Anthony Ramirez II, a Bronx entrepreneur who owns a restaurant and bar, the Bronx Beer Hall, and the company FromTheBronx.com.
Mr. Ramirez said the sandwich was popular with students he used to work with. "You don't go out of your way looking for it," he said. "It's an affordable option, and it's hot and tasty."
But in recent years, the sandwich has been finding a wider audience: a cameo in a Bronx-themed episode of Anthony Bourdain's CNN show, "Parts Unknown"; a shout-out in a restaurant review in The New York Times; an in-depth look on a food blog run by Complex Media; and a growing volume of web features, music videos and social media chatter.
Whatever it was, the chopped cheese's star was on the rise.
The Almonte Episode
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The video that helped set off a backlash was made by Insider, an online publication, about a reporter's trip to Hajji's to try a chopped cheese.
To many online commenters, the video suggested a kind of imperiousness.
Of the sandwich, the reporter, who is white, said that "most New Yorkers don't even know it exists," a slight, it seemed, to many New Yorkers who grew up eating it. It was complimented in a backhanded way as "nothing revolutionary but still delicious." And it did not help that the reporter called the bread a "sub roll," not a hero, as it is commonly called in New York, revealing herself to be an outsider. But perhaps it was the description of the $4 sandwich as "a steal" that incensed the most.
"Hate to break this to you Inside Foods, but poor people do exist," a Facebook commenter wrote.
Jeffrey Almonte, 20, a YouTube personality from Harlem, filmed an expletive-laced response in his living room, accusing the reporter of "Columbus syndrome" and comparing her segment to gentrification.
"What's next, the chopped cheese made you fear for your life?" he said.
His video was streamed millions of times, part of a steep spike in internet searches for the sandwich. The chopped cheese's fame continued to grow, for better or worse.
An Emotional Debate
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Heated discussions about cultural appropriation are not, of course, limited to food. The borrowing of certain styles of dress, music, dance and language has long prompted similar debates.
"This is a classic story," said Michael W. Twitty, a culinary historian. "You create something in a state of want, a state of necessity, and then it becomes prime real estate in someone else's hands."
But debates about food, with its deep connection to taste and all of its potential implications about class bias, can take on a particularly emotional tenor. The other day, the upscale department store Neiman Marcus, set off a social media storm by offering three pounds of collard greens — a Southern staple long associated with African-Americans — for $66.
And for foods popular among minorities, there is a history of grotesque stereotypes used as marketing, Mr. Twitty said. Still, he added, there is a way to demarcate homage and appropriation. "The benchmark is respect and access," Mr. Twitty said. "Are the sources being acknowledged and respected?"
White Gold
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Jocelyn Guest, a 32-year-old butcher, said that when she and her business partner, Erika Nakamura, decided to open up a butcher shop and restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan featuring classic New York fare, they had to include the chopped cheese.
"It's such a huge part of the New York sandwich canon," Ms. Guest said, who was introduced to it when she lived in Harlem.
But news that the restaurant, White Gold — which they own with the chef April Bloomfield and the restaurateur Ken Friedman — would include an approximately $15 chopped cheese drew another wave of anger. When the restaurant opened recently, the price was lowered to $11.
Ms. Guest and Ms. Nakamura said they could understand the concerns. Ms. Guest, who is from Virginia, said she had watched warily as barbecue took off in popularity in New York. Ms. Nakamura, 36, who was born and raised in Japan, said she noted the ways that Japanese culture, including food, became mainstream.
"But there's also the idea that this is a celebration," Ms. Nakamura said. "We're not going to make this sandwich and be billionaires. For us, it's a genuine and very innocent admiration of what it is."
Now, in London
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Hajji's was crowded on a recent Friday night. Femi Agunbiade, 24, had driven an hour from Maplewood, N.J., with his girlfriend to get a chopped cheese. Mr. Agunbiade had first learned about it from a YouTube documentary. "Fell in love with it," he said.
Workers say they are not worried about more competition. "This is a free market," Mr. Moslih said. "When people want a nice pastrami, they'll go to Katz's. And if people want a nice chopped cheese, they'll come here."
The sandwich continues to work its way into the city's culture in unexpected ways, showing up in vegan renditions, in recipes and at a recent food festival. A scroll through the web turns up a video of a white standup comedian, Will Carey, performing a bit about the sandwich. "Just knowing what a chopped cheese is, I'm destroying a vital multicultural part of New York City," he jokes. It is the subject of a few memes, including one that riffs on the gentrification of the sandwich.
It has popped up as far away as London, at a bar that recently added one to its food menu.
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At Insider, the reaction to its "sub roll" video prompted some sober reflection. "I think we all came to the conclusion that they were right," said Stephen Parkhurst, a supervising producer. "We could have approached it with a little more sensitivity."
Mr. Parkhurst said the video team had since adjusted its approach to ensure that ideas were vetted by a diverse group to better filter those that could be "insensitive or imperialistic."
Mr. Almonte, who had harshly responded to that video, was more measured in a later interview. "For the past few years now, I've been seeing this whole thing with the 'hood being romanticized or trendy," he said. "People who don't live here want to talk like us, dress like us, act like us, but don't know the struggle of actually living here."
Still, Mr. Almonte said he enjoyed exploring the city. Lately, he has been spending time in Chinatown, seeking out its reasonably priced foods.
"A New Yorker," he said, "never stops being a tourist."
Where Can I Get a Chopped Cheese Outside Nyc
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/nyregion/chopped-cheese-sandwich-harlem.html