The Shaky Origin Story Of The Monte Cristo Sandwich

Your basic Monte Cristo recipe includes sliced bread, ham, cheese, mayonnaise, and a rich egg batter to dip the entire sandwich in before cooking it; this final component crisps the outside while leaving the inside soft and gooey. It's sort of like a French toast breakfast sandwich (and it does sometimes include sugar), but it's still savory enough for lunch. It's also a complete mystery how the Monte Cristo came to be.

Many Americans first became acquainted with the sandwich through Disneyland in Southern California. Introduced to menus in 1966, the Monte Cristo became a staple at two restaurants in the theme park's New Orleans Square: the Blue Bayou and Tahitian Terrace — the first of which is famously attached to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. However, even though it received a swashbuckling popularity boost at Disneyland, that's not where the sandwich first appeared, although the history gets murkier here.

Precursors to the Monte Cristo showed up in American cookbooks under different names, such as the French sandwich or the French toasted cheese sandwich, as early as the 1930s. The term "Monte Cristo" possibly first appeared in San Diego soon after. The 1949 Brown Derby Cookbook, inspired by the Los Angeles restaurant chain, uses this modern name. Famous author John Cheever also accurately describes a "Monte Christo" sandwich in a letter from the early 1960s.

Despite the mystery behind its exact origin, the Monte Cristo almost certainly traces its roots back to the French croque monsieur, a simple ham and Gruyère sandwich with béchamel sauce. This sandwich first appeared in Parisian cafés around 1910 and has inspired a few different spin-offs, including the French croque madame, which includes an egg on top, and the decadent Portuguese francesinha sandwich, which is served in a tomato-and-beer sauce. Unlike its Parisian predecessor, a Monte Cristo is dipped in beaten egg and often includes sliced meats like turkey.

Once the sandwich took hold in the United States, different regional versions began to pop up. Many Monte Cristo aficionados insist the sandwich should be served with raspberry jam or preserves (although it's fine to use other berries) and then dusted with sugar to balance the savory flavor profile out with some sweetness. Whether you consider the sliced turkey and sugar essential or not, any form of the sandwich is a uniquely American creation, even if its unusual name remains a mystery. Ultimately, there's very little evidence to connect it to either the ghost town of Monte Cristo in Washington or Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo," two commonly suggested inspirations.