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2018


Saltsa Kema

On 6/12/2018 12:23 PM, Lincoln wrote:

 Hello Phaedrus,

 Do you have a recipe for Coney Island Hot Dog sauce from 1915-1930 or 
 a recipe for Greek Saltsa Kema from the same period?

 Thanks

 Linc

Hello Linc,

Coney Island sauces for hot dogs trace their origins back to Greek and Macedonian immigrants who began serving them in the years from the turn of the century to the 1930's in various cities, particularly in the Midwestern U.S. Their "Coney Sauce" or "chili" was based on meat sauce recipes that they brought from their home countries. When these immigrants entered the U.S. through NYC, they visited Coney Island. NY, and ate hot dogs there. However, the hot dogs being served at Coney Island at the time were not served with meat sauce.

When these immigrants settled in the Midwest, they began serving hot dogs slathered in their own family recipe meat sauce. Since hot dogs, for them, were linked with Coney Island, NY, they called them "Coney Islands." These meat sauces varied from family to family, and they were based on the meat sauces served over pasta in Greece. These pasta sauces were called "Saltsa Kema" and the dish was called "makaronia mekima" (pasta with meat sauce). It's basically "spaghetti with meat sauce" or "pasta with sauce bolognese," as it is called in Italy, but with somewhat different ingredients. This "Saltsa Kema" is considered by many, if not all, food historians, to be the origin of both "Coney Island sauce" and of "Cincinnati chili." In spite of being called "chili", both of these things developed separately from "chili con carne" or Mexican-style chili.

There are some basic problems with finding recipes for Coney Island sauce or saltsa kema or Cincinnati chili dating from the years 1915 to 1930:

First, recipes for these things posted on the Internet and in popular cookbooks almost never give dates or specific origins for them. They may call themselves "original Coney Island sauce" or "original Greek sauce", or "original Cincinnati chili", but that's no help without dates of origin and details to establish provenance.

Second, those old recipes were and are closely held family secrets. The Greek or Macedonian families, and the restaurants established by those families, just don't share the recipes with anyone. They pass them down within the family from generation to generation. In the case of Coney Island Restaurants, often only one person in the restaurant knows the sauce recipe and he alone makes up the sauce.

I did a search per your request, and I found several recipes that were called "original Coney Island sauce" or "original Greek sauce," but none of them are dated or give detailed origins.  You can find links to these and others on my specific page for this subject at: Hot Dogs

I have been collecting these recipes for a couple of decades now, and I have never come across a Coney Island sauce recipe that said it was from a particular time and place in the 1900s to 1930s. I do have one recipe from a place called "John Pa's Restaurant" that served up their famous hot-dogs and sauce on Main street in Toledo Ohio in the 1930s.

Similarly, although I found several Greek "Saltsa Kema" recipes on the Internet, I found none giving a specific date or place of origin.

I'm afraid that the "John Pa's" recipe is the best that I can do, Linc. I'll post this for reader input. Perhaps someone can provide a reference and/or a recipe.

Phaed



GMP Training Video

On 6/12/2018 4:29 PM, Michelle wrote:

 Hello Uncle Phaedrus,

 I have a bit of an unusual request for you. I am trying to find a training video 
I have watched at a couple of previous companies I worked at. These companies were 
pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. The videois about pharmaceutical 
manufacturing GMPs (Good Manufacturing Practices). It is old, looks like it was 
made in the 50s or 60s (it is black and white, or sepia toned), and tells the story 
of little "Susie" (might have the name incorrect) and her mother. Susie is sick and 
needs a certain medication that they call something like "Formula L277" (again, might 
have the number wrong). the video then moves to the company that manufactures this 
drug and goes through the process, pointing out everything that could go wrong, like 
what if it isn't labeled correctly, mixed for the right amount of time, the employees 
are in a rush and make mistakes, cross-contaminated, etc. The point is to show how 
important all these little things are so that the medicine is made correctly. At the 
time, I suppose it was a serious video, nowadays, parts of it seem pretty funny but 
the overall message is still the same, GMP.

 Since I have seen this video used for training purposes in a couple of different 
companies, I am thinking it must be in the public domain, but I have searched and 
cannot find it. Perhaps you may have better luck? Thank you!

Regards,

Michelle

Hi Michelle,

I always welcome unusual requests. They're a welcome change of topic.

I'm afraid that I must disappoint you, however. I didn't have any success locating your particular request. There a quite a few GMP training films on YouTube, but none fit your description. See: YouTube GMT

My first thought is for you to call the HR offices at the companies where you saw these films and ask them to help. If they can't be specific with a source for that film, perhaps they can give you the name of a distributor of such training films and you can locate it through the distributor.

Phaed



Carrows Salad Dressing

On 6/8/2018 2:51 PM, Abby wrote:
 Hi Phaedrus,

 Carrows Restaurants used to have a sweet and sour tomato-based salad dressing 
that was sort of a vinaigrette. I think they called it 3D dressing. I havent 
been able to find a copycat recipe, or even anyone who remembers it, via Google. 
Do you have any other resources?

 Many thanks!
 Abby 

Hello Abby,

I'm afraid that I had no more success than you.

There is no mention of this salad dressing on any of Carrows Restaurants' menus or nutrition lists:

Carrows.com

Carrows Corona

Carrows Nutrition

I could only find one mention of it on the Internet, and that was an 11 year old  request similar to yours from "rparker762" on "Recipeland": RecipeLand

I'll post this for reader input, but you should be aware that chain restaurants like this often have their salad dressings made at a central commissary. If that was so 0f this dressing, then the local restaurant employees would not have known the recipe for it. Only commissary employees would have known it, and the recipe used would have been for large quantities of dressing to be made up and bottled and sent out to the local restaurants.

It does not appear that anyone has made a copycat recipe for this dressing.

Phaed



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