El cuban sandwich It is a variation of a ham and cheese originally created by Cuban workers, in Cuba or in the Cuban immigrant communities of Florida, in cities like Miami and Key West in the 1960s.
The sandwich is made with ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, mustard, cold cuts and sometimes on Cuban bread. As with Cuban bread, the origin of the Cuban sandwich (sometimes called the "Cuban combination," "mixed sandwich", or "pressed Cuban Sandwich") is somewhat murky.
The sandwich became a common lunch food for workers at both Cuba's cigar factories and sugar mills and at the Ybor City cigar factories in 1900. At that time, travel between Cuba and Florida was easy. , and Cubans frequently sailed back and forth for employment, pleasure, and family visits.
In Cuba (where it is more commonly known as la mixta), the sandwich was served in kiosks, coffee shops and informal restaurants, especially in large cities such as Havana or Santiago de Cuba. In the 1960s, Cuban sandwiches were also common, in cafeterias and restaurant menus in Miami, the city that welcomed Cuban refugees after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.
The traditional Cuban sandwich begins with Cuban bread. The bread is cut into 8-12 inch (20-30 cm) lengths, lightly buttered, or brushed with olive oil, into the crust, and cut in half horizontally. A mustard yellow layer is spread over the bread. Then roast pork, glazed ham, Swiss cheese, and sparsely sliced pickles are added in layers. Sometimes it is pork marinated in mojo and slow roasted.
Once assembled, the sandwich is lightly toasted in a sandwich press called a la Plancha, which is somewhat similar to a Panini press, but without ribbed surfaces. The griddle gets so hot and compresses the sandwich that it remains in the press until the bread is crisp and the cheese has melted.
Precisely, a popular sandwich is called Midnight. It is so named because of the sandwich's popularity as a food served in Havana nightclubs around or after midnight. It consists of roast pork, ham, mustard, Swiss cheese, and sliced pickles. Midnight is a close cousin to the Cuban sandwich, the main difference is that it is made with a sweet bread than a Cuban sandwich.
