South American Sandwiches (of Northeastern Minnesota)

https://www.sandwichtribunal.com/2022/07/south-american-sandwiches-of-northeastern-minnesota/

by Jim Behymer · Published July 30, 2022 · Updated July 31, 2022

Excerpt from a conversation with Mindy

MINDY: What kind of sandwich is this again?
JIM: South American
MINDY (looking at me quizzically): Which country?
JIM: They’re from Minnesota.
MINDY:
MINDY:
MINDY: What?

The Iron Range

During the early 20th Century, immigrants began pouring into a previously little-populated area of Northeastern Minnesota. In the late 19th Century, iron ore deposits–good ones, near the surface, easy to work–were located in three different ranges within the “arrowhead” formed by the northern shore of Lake Superior and the Canadian border, and the need for laborers to work the mines that began springing up coincided with a fresh wave of immigration, largely from northern and eastern Europe. For a while, northeastern Minnesota had one of the more diverse populations in the country.

Forty-three different nationality groups populated the Iron Range. The earliest immigrants were Finnish, Swedish, Slovenian, Canadian, Norwegian, Cornish, or German. After 1900, the origins of the population expanded, with Italian, Croatian, Polish, Montenegrin, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian, and Greek immigrants filling mining jobs. A sizeable Jewish population started main street businesses. Chinese immigrant men ran restaurants and laundries.

“How Immigrants Shaped the Iron Range,” David LaVigne, minnpost.com

A generation or two into the life of the Iron Range, this distinctively divergent mix of nationalities had resulted in a culinary melting pot as well. Cultural lines blend and shift, and beloved dishes may be pulled from Scandinavian, Ashkenazi, Austro-Hungarian or Anglo-American culinary traditions. Over time, a single family’s table might hold Swedish pancakes, Slovenian Potica, Italian Porketta, and Pasties that wouldn’t look out of place in an English miner’s lunch sack.

Out of this environment came the South American, a bar snack made by the barrelful and sold late at night to help clear the heads of those revelers who had to strap a headlamp back on early the next morning. The Iron Range miners were a work hard / play hard lot, and the taverns there did good business. According to the Mesabi Tribune, the sandwich was invented by Mike Giacomo, who ran the Spaghetti Inn in Gilbert, Minnesota. Legend has it that a late-night drunken patron came by, demanding sustenance. Giacomo combined odds and ends–a few different types of minced meat, peppers, onions, tomatoes, celery, whatever leftovers were on hand essentially–chopped them all up, mixed them together in a big pot and cooked them down before serving the resulting mess on sliced bread.