Imagine a miracle food—miraculous not for any health benefits or ridiculously high levels of antioxidants—but because it's a miracle that it exists at all. That’s the cheesesteak egg roll. Chopped steak mixed with sauteed onions and american cheese is wrapped in the thick, crispy skin of an egg roll. This unorthodox fusion hits all the right buttons; it's salty, tangy, sweet and crunchy. Dip it into ketchup for an extra dose of tangy sweetness, and you’ve got a perfect bite.

This Frankensteinian fusion could only have originated in an American city, where the cuisine Americans crave most is something new. Satisfying this craving is difficult for any chef, but prompts the most fascinating fusions. The cheesesteak egg roll fits right into this niche, but what adventurous chef dared to marry this odd couple?

Well, that’s a sensitive subject. Originating in Philadelphia in the 90s or early 2000s, the invention of this remarkable creation is shrouded in mystery. According to Philadelphia Magazine, three different restaurateurs claim the honor. There’s David Jansen, the former chef de cuisine of the Four Seasons, who attributes the creation to Mui Lim, a banquet cook, who supposedly wrapped leftover cheesesteak meat in egg roll wrappers and tossed them into the fryer at the end of a long night. Then there’s Steve Difillipo, who claims he found his staff eating them in the 2000s. Stephen Starr, a renowned restaurateur, disputes both Jansen and DiFillipo’s stories. He brought in a NYC chef to create a menu for one of his restaurants, prompting the creation of the food item in 1996.

Perhaps Starr's is its creator, perhaps Mui Lim deserves the praise. Who knows? Really, who cares? I raise you a more interesting question: How on earth did these two foods come together?

Unlike the greasy origins of the cheesesteak egg roll, its parent foods have a much clearer background. The cheesesteak originated in Philadelphia in the 1930s with Pat Oliveri1, a hot dog cart vendor that just got fed up with hot dogs. Legend has it that Pat asked his brother to pick up steak, rather than their typical wieners, from their butcher. He cooked the sliced steak on his grill, alongside some onions, and paired them together in a sandwich. A passing cab driver asked him for half, so they shared the sandwich. When the driver told him he should sell those sandwiches instead of hot dogs, the steak sandwich was born. The cheese came later, after Pat opened his restaurant: Pat’s King of Steaks. His manager, “Cocky Joe” Leary added some provolone onto his steak sandwich, unknowingly creating Philadelphia’s most iconic regional dish in the process.

For anyone who’s had a cheesesteak, you know it hasn’t changed much in the past ninety years. The ingredients are simple: steak, thinly sliced or chopped; cheese, either provolone, American or cheese whiz; and a torpedo roll. You can top it with mushrooms or peppers, and order it with chicken rather than steak. Hell, there are even vegan cheesesteaks now. There’s no excuse to not try one for yourself. And, if you haven’t ever had one, you should really fix that. Soon.

While the cheesesteak is quintessential American cuisine—where else could you get something so greasy, so cheesy, so absolutely-artery-clogging—it didn’t sprout out of nowhere. Its origin lies in Philly’s Italian-American community. Oliveri, an Italian-American, sold his steaks only a block away from the Italian Market, Philly’s first open-air market. And, while the sandwich differs from the red sauce dishes that Americans typically associate with Italian food, Philadelphia owes its most famous sandwich to the influx of Italian immigrants.

So, cheesesteaks were born from a community of immigrants living in South Philly. Where did egg rolls come from?

Well, you might be disappointed to discover that the answer is not, in fact, China. Their parent food, spring rolls, did originate in China during the Tang Dynasty, which lasted from 618 BCE to 907 BCE. Eaten during the spring festival, which is where they get their name, these rolls consist of rolling up spring vegetables in a thin, flour-paste wrapper and pan-frying them.

Chinese immigrants, most of whom hailed from Canton, introduced their native cuisine to the United States when they began emigrating in the nineteenth century. San Francisco was a hub for this cultural mixing, as Chinese immigrants set up “chop suey” houses that catered towards the growing population that flooded California during the Gold Rush. The restaurateurs running these establishments altered their native cuisine in order to appeal to the American taste buds, a process known as Americanization2. Essentially, they added sugar and deep-fried it.

And, voila! Through this process, the egg roll was born.

The Chinese-American egg roll differs greatly from its Chinese counterpart. While the spring roll traditionally has a vegetarian filling, consisting of sauteed cabbage, mushrooms, scallions and cabbage, the egg roll almost always has meat. Writing for The Ledger, Monica Eng2 states that Fanny Go, whom Eng profiles in her article, adds “plenty of rich barbecued pork, shredded chicken, chunks of boiled shrimp, chopped green onions” and even peanut butter to her filling. Peanut butter in Chinese food? That’s fusion, plain and simple.

With a culture that prizes transforming food in order to appeal to consumers’ tastes, it’s only natural that a brave chef would conceive of the cheesesteak egg roll.

However, America has not always been kind to what they deem as “foreign food,” nor to the foreigners who introduced it. Anti-Chinese sentiment in the West reached a height in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese laborers from entering the United States. The violence and prejudice that Chinese-Americans experienced in western states, like California, drove them east, where many ended up in Philadelphia. Even as the Chinese Exclusion Act kept more people from immigrating into the country, the population of Asian-Americans within Philadelphia continued to grow. This, coupled with Philadelphia's growing interest in “cultural exchange with East Asia,” created the perfect environment for cuisine experimentation.

Italian immigrants faced a similar persecution, with quotas restricting the number of immigrants who originated from southern Europe. In 1921, Congress passed the Quota Act4, which limited immigration from Italy to only 3,845—a starkly lower number from the 34,007 allowed to emigrate from Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is important to note, however, that at this point in history, the quota for Chinese immigrants was zero.

Yet, despite the anti-immigrant sentiment that plagued these demographics in the infancy of their communities, their food still became an essential element of American cuisine. And, if you look, you’ll find that every iconic American dish has the same, essential ingredient: immigration. So, the next time that you bite into the crunchy, cheesy goodness of a cheesesteak egg roll, remember the truly miraculous history that created it.

Notes

1 The story behind the Philly cheesesteak on National Geographic.
2 Americanization definition by Brittanica
3 Rolled Up With Tradition: Tracing the History of the Egg Roll in America on The Ledger
4 Immigration Quotas, 1925–1927 on History Matters