Cheesesteak from Pat’s King of Steaks in Philadelphia
29 September 2020
A cheesesteak is a type of sandwich consisting of thinly sliced or shaved beef, onions, and melted cheese (or Cheez Whiz if you don’t consider that product to fall into the category of “cheese”). The sandwich is closely associated with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and all evidence points to it having originated there.
The earliest reference to a cheesesteak that I have found is from the Philadelphia Daily News of 6 December 1963:
Fighter-manager Giardello is getting 15 percent of the gate. After expenses for training and buying out his previous manager, this will come to enough for a cheesesteak sandwich and carfare to his home near Garden State Park.
The designation Philadelphia is added about a decade later. From the Philadelphia Inquirer of 20 September 1974:
Start the day off at the 9th st. Italian market—the greatest dose of the Old World available in Modern America. My out-of-town guests usually rate it above the Liberty Bell as a tourist attraction. Stop off for lunch at Pat’s Steak at 6th and Catherine and let them sample a Philadelphia cheesesteak sandwich or a hoagie.
And that is clipped to Philly by 1981, when it appears in an advertisement in the Tampa Tribune on 8 January 1981:
We at Philly Mignon Restaurant want to tell you of the fine response we received from our ad-with-coupon for our Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich.
Sources:
Advertisement. Tampa Tribune (Florida), 8 January 1981, 4-NS. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Curry, Bill. “Philadelphia Story: Ready for Change?” Philadelphia Inquirer, 20 September 1974, 1-C. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Merchant, Larry. “Who’s Worst Manager?” Philadelphia Daily News, 6 December 1963, 74. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, s.v. cheesesteak, n., Philly, n. and adj. March 2006; Philadelphia, n. December 2005. Note: the OED has a 1941 Chicago citation for Cheese steak that does not appear to be a reference to a sandwich and a 1946 citation for Cheese Steaks from a Brisbane, Australia newspaper, but this one appears in a recipe for a casserole and is unrelated to the sandwich.
Photo credit: Anonymous, 2006, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.