You can call it that other Cuban sandwich, but most people know it as the Elena Ruz.
The sandwich’s namesake, Elena Ruz Valdes-Fauli, comes from the old Cuban elite, a family of lawyers that went on to invest heavily in the Miami business community. As a young lady, Ruz was a socialite who loved to dance the night away in Havana’s bustling club scene in the 1920s and 30s. All this dancing stoked an appetite.
Ruz’s favorite late night restaurant was El Carmelo in Havana’s Vedado district. Most of her peers would have ordered medianoche sandwiches, a smaller adaptation of the Cuban, with ham, pork, and Swiss served on egg bread similar to challah. It was so popular late at night among club- and theatre-goers, that it became known as the “midnight” sandwich.
Apparently, the medianoche wasn’t lady-like enough for Ruz. True to character as a young, well-to-do socialite, Ruz was not interested in the menu, instead demanding that the kitchen make an unusual sandwich to her strict specifications. The sandwich seems unusual at first glance: turkey, cream cheese, and strawberry jam on lightly toasted white bread. One taste and it is perfectly natural, like something from a tea parlor, with the savory turkey and sweet jam married by the cream cheese.
This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2010.