Stories vary, but nearly everyone agrees that the French dip was invented in Los Angeles around 1918. It coincided with a national craze for crusty French bread. Some say it started when a toothless old man wandered into a streetcar-terminal café and, seeing the baguette that the brisket sandwich was made with, asked the waitress to soften the crust a bit by dipping it in meat juices. Another tale involves a Frenchman in charge of a popular dining room near the railroad station. As monsieur was assembling a roast beef sandwich, he accidentally dropped the bread into a vat of au jus, and the customer—a cop, who suspiciously happened to be named French—decided to eat it anyway. The soggy result was forever after referred to as a French dip. Either way, it achieved countrywide popularity over the ensuing century and became a bona fide American classic.
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