“Every few thousand years some shepherd inhales smoke from a burning bush and has a vision or eats moldy rye bread in a cave and sees God.”

– Kerry Thornley, co-founder of Discordianism

I stand corrected, or rather sit. You see, I made fun of the claim of Boedo’s Café Margot that the turkey sandwich was invented in their restaurant back in the 1940s. I pointed out that it was laughable simply at face value, not to mention, though I did mention, that the claim is disputed by their neighbors down the block, Trianón at Boedo 845. So here’s the correction, as it turns out, they’re not talking about the standard turkey sandwich with slices of turkey and some mayo, lettuce and tomato. They’re talking about what they both call the sandwich de pavita clasico, which, while having the mayo, lettuce and tomato, has shredded turkey escabeche as the meat ingredient. You may remember we went for a plate of the escabeche as an appetizer at Margot and liked it quite a bit.

Trianón offers up the turkey escabeche in more combinations than Margot manages, though they have a limited number of blanco de pavita sandwiches, those made with the aforementioned slices of white meat (on the other hand, they also have turkey pizza and calzones, though not, surprisingly, empanadas – I asked, the waiter thought it was a good idea… watch for a new invention – could they really not have thought of that before?). Their escabeche is a bit more vinegary than Margot’s, but not over the top. And, they offer rye bread – possibly the first time I’ve seen rye bread offered at an Argentine restaurant (not counting the rye bread that turned out not to be available at the now defunct Mamma Europa deli oh so many moons ago). Really. Size and price-wise, about the same at both places. And, Trianón boldly proclaims on their menu, rather than a signboard, that they are the inventors of the sandwich.

I still think it’s a laughable claim. Pickling meat has been a common way of preserving it in many countries around the world for eons, certainly long before the 1940s, and the idea that prior to that no one ever stuck some pickled turkey between two slices of bread before and served it up makes little sense. Still, perhaps if you give them props for being a specifically shredded turkey escabeche, and paired with m, l & t, and tossed in that we’re talking about BA or at least Argentina, maybe we could give one of the two spots the credit. Except I think there’s another place a block or so away making the same claim… have to go check them out and see what they have to say.