Sandwiches
aka one of the best ways to consume food
Recently I’ve struggled with an intense craving for something savoury. With my late night tiktok scrolls (circa 2 am), I have curated a feed that gives me exclusively fashion, art, philosophical dwellings, and food posts. I have a new folder of recipes I will try once I make it back home to a kitchen (my dorm has a single microwave). I’ve started spending my class periods surfing the web for new creations and spending every moment in the dining hall with a bizarre insatiable hunger. After about a week of suffering, I have come to realise this hunger is a craving for complex flavour. And I believe the best way to meet this, is through a sandwich.
Why sandwiches? Because they perfectly encapsulate everything good into one simple dish. Bread, meat, veggies, cheese, and sauce. Sandwhichs are customisable. You can take leftovers and transform them into something new. They’re filling. And each bite is flavourful.
On my sandwich-love grind, I read up a lot about their history. It was more recent than I’d imagined although technically people have been making sandwich like creations for thousands of years. Isn’t that a fun thought? That I could be creating and eating a food once consumed by those from forever long ago?
In Paris, I would eat a sandwich everyday (definitions expanded larger). For breakfast; one half of butter and raspberry jam on a baguette. Or butter and honey. Or butter and quince jelly. For lunch; the second half. On days I felt fancy, and interested in spending “money” (three euros), butter, cornichons, and salami on a baguette from the closest boulangerie.
In Amsterdam, I once bought a sandwich of a full pickled herring on a buttered roll for five euros. Although I was deterred by the little bones, flavour-wise I thought the sandwich held up well. And in Senegal this past December, when I got the worst food poisoning of my life from a street vendors sandwich; thinly sliced beef with grilled onions, hot sauce, mayo, and ketchup, I was still able to appreciate its splendour. I had been craving a sandwich after all, hadn’t I? And when I ate that godforsaken masterpiece in my tiny Dakar college classroom, I told everyone it was once of the best sandwiches I had ever consumed— inspiring my friend to purchase a second (which later resulting in her illness too).
Perhaps it is possible to love something to your own detriment. But isn’t that the way with anything? In high school driving cross country with my parents, we stopped at a diner and my father and I shared a Ruben. Mid-day in a Vermont train car booth seat, we split the bread, fingertips dirtied from sauce and sauerkraut, and I declared sandwiches my favourite food. You see, I am the type to struggle with declarative statements. Worry that I may state something too fast and have it no longer be true has held me back from deciding anything. Yet I know this to be true, I love sandwiches!
All this is to say, I have made a list of some current sandwich ideas (obsessions or cravings) for you all to enjoy alongside me. Have fun !!
Current Sandwich Ideas