An open-faced sandwich of turkey breast, bacon and tomato on toast, blanketed in a creamy Mornay sauce and broiled until golden. Louisville's signature plate.

Chef Fred K. Schmidt invented the Hot Brown at the Brown Hotel in 1926 to feed the late-night dancers at the hotel's 1,200-guest dinner balls. Schmidt riffed on traditional Welsh rarebit, replacing the bread foundation with toast and turkey and finishing with bacon and tomato. The sandwich quickly became the choice of 95 percent of the hotel's restaurant customers and has anchored Louisville hotel menus and lunch counters ever since. Recipes have been published widely, but the Brown Hotel's J. Graham's Cafe still serves the original.

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