When building that perfect sandwich, the one that fills you up and satisfies you like no other, the last thing one might think twice about is cutting it in half. Most people are programmed based on how their sandwiches were cut for them at a young age. But we’ve pondered this for a long time; which makes for a more perfect sandwich – the cross cut or diagonal cut?

Fortunately, Alice Winkler of NPR’s All Things Considered decided to find a definitive answer to this age old question. Kevin Harris, an architect in Baton Rouge explains that cutting on the diagonal greatly exposes the inside of the sandwich saying, “by exposing the interior, it engages more of your senses before you take the first bite.” It’s more about the illusion of a larger sandwich for Kemp Minifie, former executive food editor of Gourmet Magazine. She is confident that as human beings we want more excitement from life, to think out of the box, and too summons architecture, “right angles can be boring, think of rooms – we like curved windows, bay windows.”

The thinking gets even deeper when Winkler discusses the concept with Paul Calter emeritus professor of mathematics at Vermont Technical College. Listen to the audio excerpt and read the article to learn how Plato most likely ate his sandwiches.

Let us know in the comments how you prefer to cut your sandwich. Further more, we would like to propose the following question: When eating a sandwich on sliced bread, do you bite in from the middle or the corner?

Rectangle Vs. Triangle: The Great Sandwich Debate [NPR]

Unbreaded is proud to offer our first e-book for you to download and enjoy.  Commemorating the first Sandwich Smash event, it is filled to the brim with great articles, photos, interviews and recipes – just make sure you have a sandwich nearby.  You’re going to get hungry.

Download the Sandwich Smash e-book [PDF]

We know that a great sandwich starts with great bread.  But what makes great bread different and better than ordinary breads?  We asked a true expert: Metropolitan Bakery’s head baker, James Barrett.

The answer is fermentation, and they figured it out hundreds of years ago in Europe.  Today, while most commercial bakeries pump out breads at breakneck speeds, Metropolitan takes 48 hours to let the dough rise under unique parameters of time, temperature and fermentation (Barrett’s approach is long, slow and cool.)  After spending 8 years as pastry chef at White Dog Café, Barrett developed his sourdough natural starter in 1987 and has kept the cultures alive and active for almost 20 years.  He considers himself a vessel for an age-old technique, allowing the natural bacteria and acids in the yeast to impart blisters on the crust.  Many bakers seek to avoid such imperfections, but that is exactly what Metropolitan aims for to bring out the flavor of the wheat.  Barrett believes their process results in chewier, moister breads with flavorful crusts.

Of course, it also starts with great flours, which the yeast eats three times a day.  Sourced primarily from Lindley Mills, an organic miller in North Carolina, the flour comes from Central US wheat fields.  Metropolitan uses no additives, fillers or conditioners, and grains and seeds are mixed and roasted by hand.

The French baguette is Metropolitan’s top seller, and always has been.  It is perfectly suited for a sandwich like prosciutto, fennel, onions and mustard.  The whole wheat sandwich bread is moist, fresh and light; great for a toasted sandwich or panini.  The multigrain bread pairs well with cheese and apples; and the nutty, sour, crisp and moist organic miche with rye flour is ideal for a chicken salad sandwich with tarragon mayonnaise.  For James Barrett, who prefers sandwiches toasted and pressed, it doesn’t get much better than a Reuben on NY rye – gooey, creamy, crisp and bursting with flavor.

After 15 years, Metropolitan now has 5 retail locations.  The Rittenhouse and Reading Terminal Market stores are managed by the company; the University City, Chestnut Hill and Old City (inside Farmicia) locations are managed by licensees.  At the University City store, breakfast and lunch sandwiches are made fresh to order.  Metropolitan also provides bakery and training for the H.O.M.E. Page Café at the Philadelphia Free Library.  Metropolitan breads are available at gourmet markets in the region, and can be found on the menu at restaurants including Rouge, Butcher & Singer and Pumpkin.  New cookies and pastry items are introduced frequently, and both breads and pastries change seasonally.

Gallery

Metropolitan Bakery
262 S 19th St., Philadelphia, PA 19103 (Google Map)

Southern BBQ, outside of Savannah
Despite the talk about urban multiculturalism, the most complex culinary unions in this country were in the rural south, where Afro-Caribbean slaves and European landowners entwined their open-fire cooking techniques and native ingredients into “plantation”-style cooking.  There is probably no better example of this hybrid than the all-day affair of barbecue, arguably America’s most distinctively regional food.

There are about a zillion places to get barbecue in the south and probably just as many opinions about where and why. I relied on the advice of Steven Raichlen (grilling expert and author of many books, including BBQ USA which features a 500 year national timeline and was also a great help to me about Memphis barbecue for another Travel + Leisure story) who told me that as cultish as barbecue has become, it was also the country’s most democratic form of cooking: slaves may have cooked it, but landowners staged it, and if you look at history you will see great pit masters from diverse backgrounds.

(NOTE: It has been several years since I was here.)
At the Pink Pig (also Raichlen’s suggestion), barbecue continues its everyman reputation except this time every “man” is Rita Thomas, the coifed and cultured pit master. A former nurse who inherited the restaurant from her brother, Thomas believes in running a family business—Mom behind the register, son over the cutting board: “My Daddy always had a smoke going.”

Out back, she opened the door of the pit, letting me get a whiff of spice-rubbed Boston Butt roasts (actually the upper portion of the pork whole shoulder), smoking over a combination of oak and hickory. The result was a sandwich of hand-chopped meat with silky interior and crispy edges on a delicate, almost sweet dinner roll, accompanied by a trio of sauces:  Original Honey Mustard, Low Country Fire, and a spicy vinegar and mustard combination, Gullah Spice (rooted in the distinctive community of heritage rich and reclusive West African-Americans who live on the semi-tropical sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia).

Later that night, when I pulled my tee shirt over my head, I smelled that smoke pit all over again. Not in that reeking “morning after” way. But a fragrant mist with the power to conjure up memories, like a fine perfume.

Cubano, Miami
With a similar back story to other port sandwiches, the Cubano was reportedly designed to feed workers—in this case, Cuban cigar factory workers transported to southern Florida (particularly in Key West and Tampa) in the late 1800’s. However, it was the late 1980’s before I had my first Cubano, just about the time Chef Norman Van Aiken was shaking things up with something he called “New World Cuisine” (although it seems commonplace now, there was an exciting newness to his combination of local Latin and Caribbean flavors with traditional European techniques) and drawing young chefs from all over the country. The hours were long, the nights late, and the sandwich, the Cubano.

Miami is a nocturnal city—especially in the stretch known as “Little Havana,” where the Cubano is a vital part of the late night landscape.  In the same fashion as other iconic regional sandwiches, a Cubano starts with the bread: an 8-inch roll typically made with lard, which accounts for its lightness. (Many places make a smaller version on sweeter bread called media noche or “midnight” sandwich.) There’s typically a slathering of butter under the sugar-cured Bolo ham and Swiss cheese. But the real flavor is delivered by slow-roasted marinated pork (lechon asado), always cut by hand. That tiny dagger of tanginess needed to pierce the richness of the fillings is supplied by thinly-sliced pickle and its juices. After spending time in a plancha (or press) to toast the bread and warm the ingredients in their own steam (flattening the sandwich by about 1/3), the Cubano is cut the diagonal to deliver the most possible melted cheese in ratio to the bread.

The next two locations don’t qualify as “ports.” But I include them in my map trace because each represents a “soft” boundary, where cultures drift into each other and instinctively intertwine. And although hamburgers and tacos aren’t technically considered to be “sandwiches,” each falls in line with the notion that multiculturism finds its natural home within some sort of bread.

Green Chile Cheeseburger, New Mexico
Although they are practically non-existent in the rest of the country, you can get a green chile cheeseburger just about anywhere in New Mexico. Now a green chile cheeseburger is not some gimmick, like when a French chef stuffs a burger with foie gras and viola, a hundred dollar lunch. Ever since Sixteenth Century Spanish Conquistadors led settlers along the El Camino Real (the first European road in North America, stretching from Mexico City to Santa Fe), this land has been part of the Mexican frontier, and on it they grow more green chiles (the state’s top cash crop) than anywhere else in the country. The standard bearer is the fleshy Hatch green chile, available fresh in season or fire roasted, peeled and fresh-frozen in their own juices.

As to the actual burger, without becoming all Proustian about it, here’s how I got mine. I was sitting in the Tasty Freeze in Tularosa, New Mexico, eating fried green chiles out of a white paper bag, when the woman behind the counter—who introduced herself as Debbie—said since I liked them so much, maybe I should try her sister Linda’s green chile cheeseburger. Two hours later, I was sitting at the counter of the Airport Grill in the Alamogordo Airport (located near the Air Tanker Base of the Lincoln Zone Dispatch Center for wildfire control) doing just that: enjoying Linda’s tender, oversized burger topped with a few spoonfuls of diced fire-roasted green chiles secured by a dome of smoothly melted white American cheese, set upon on a 5-inch diameter bun.

Fish Taco, San Diego
The fish taco is a link to the lobster roll (Maine) and fried clam sandwich (Connecticut), probably created when some hungry guy wrapped the catch-of- the-day in bread as a way to produce a heartier meal. It’s nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact day any regional sandwich makes its first appearance. But Ralph Rubio (founder of Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill) has a fairly good idea about the modern fish taco, tracing the convergence of cultures—Californian, Mexican and surf—in his own life to 1973.

Rubio was on one of his annual San Diego State University Spring Break surfing trips to the Baja Peninsula. He remembers the beach-shack fish tacos he got there for 50 cents as “crave-able,” a feeling he says he didn’t get from other foods. In 1983, Rubio opened his first walk-up stand in a converted Orange Julius on Mission Drive in San Diego and caught the wave. When I spoke with him for the Travel + Leisure story in 2004, he was twenty-one years into his venture, with 150 regional stores and over 50 million fish tacos sold. Here’s how Rubio built his business from the ground up.

- six-inch corn tortilla (heated on the grill)
- beer-batter fried fish (Rubio’s uses Alaskan Pollock—a mild white fish—and gets an extra crispy crust)
- crema blanca (light mayonnaise with a touch of yogurt for smoothness and tang)
- blended salsa (basically the same ingredients as salsa fresca, but smooth—not chopped)
- shredded cabbage (provides the crunch and won’t wilt like lettuce)
- squeeze of fresh lime juice

Banh Mi, San Francisco
Working up the coast to Saigon Sandwiches in San Francisco, you’ll find the banh mi, an interesting example of a double immigration sandwich.

The baguette-style roll (lightened with rice flour) emerged during the French colonization of Vietnam. But the Vietnamese who migrated to the United States following the Saigon evacuation in 1975 brought the sandwich to us. Banh mi means bread (you must specify the filling) and those who short hand this relatively new sandwich as a “South East Asian hoagie” undervalue the distinctive flavorings, like sweet red pork barbecued pork sprinkled with slivers of lightly pickled cucumber and carrot seasoned with jalapenos and cilantro.

The increasing popularity of banh mi parallels Vietnamese immigration: Hawaii, the West Coast, and eventually working its way across the country to gain a foothold in the East. But the sandwich is still far from main stream. The best banh mi remain in their own ethnic neighborhoods, usually in small storefronts. Years ago, I got my first taste at Saigon Sandwiches where two surprises awaited. The good one: (at the time) the bahn mi was less than three bucks. The other: The counter women took orders from every person in line and made all the sandwiches at one time.

Italian Beef and the Borinquen Restaurant, both in Chicago
Moving east to Chicago, you come across another sandwich which is distantly related to Philadelphia’s hoagie (and thus, the Muffaletta): the Italian Beef. Unlike the hoagie’s layering of cured pork meats and cheese, the Italian Beef is the bountiful product of the city’s Union Stockyards—beef so thinly sliced it resembles a meat mille feuilles—topped by another sort of “salad,” called Giardinera. I got mine from Al’s # 1 Italian Beef at its landmark Taylor Street location.

The lineage of the Italian beef sandwich is impeccable.  Anthony Ferreri, a turn-of-the-century sandwich peddler who sold his wares from vendor trays (like those used in baseball stadiums) and also catered “peanut weddings” (for Italian immigrants who couldn’t afford more) begat Al and Frances Ferreri who opened a small curbside Beef stand in 1938 (with Frances’ husband Chris Pacelli) that eventually moved to Taylor Street and became Al’s # 1 Italian Beef, (at the time I went) still run by Frances’ sons—the Pacaelli brothers.

So are the ingredients.

- Top sirloin butt: oven roasted in water with garlic and “secret” seasonings to make the flavorful “juice” in which the sandwiches are dipped.
- Giardinera: a fermented vegetable relish made with hot peppers and celery so finely shaved that the mixture simply melts away when it hits the hot beef, soaking its flavor all the way through the sandwich
- Gonnella Bread: baked under the direction of the same family since 1886; crisp-crusted and substantial enough to stand up to dipping

There are no seats at Al’s—but then you can’t really eat this sandwich sitting down. Instead, unwrap your sandwich and spread the paper out on the counter in front of you. Lean the top half of your body forward (over the counter) while tilting the bottom half away (as though you are hugging someone and want your shoulders but not your hips to touch) so the juices drip down onto the paper (missing your clothes and shoes). When you’re done, wrap the paper up and throw your mess away.

Jibarito
Just when I thought I had picked the city of Chicago clean, a chef named Randy Zweiben took me to eat a sandwich I had never seen before or since.

According to the 2000 Census, Chicago is now one of the top three centers of Puerto Rican population in this country, and as immigration patterns changed, the city sprouted a new sandwich—the Jibarito (hee-bah-REE-toh)—found in the tightly knit Puerto Rican community of Humboldt Park.

Drive along Paseo Boricua, a mile long stretch of the Division Street corridor anchored by 59 foot, 40 ton steel sculptures of the Puerto Rican flag, and you’ll pass several places advertising “La Casa Del Jibarito.” But it is Borinquen Restaurant owner Juan C. Figueroa (known as Peter) who can take credit for the success of the sandwich and vice versa, since he chalks up his recent expansion to spiraling Jibarito sales. Zweiben, who worked in Miami during that Nuevo Latino wave and knows his way around a Cubano, explained exactly how this sandwich was made.

The innovative “bread” is made from twice fried green plantains (sliced and pressed into a rough rectangular shape and brushed with garlic and oil) while the fillings rely on traditional cooking methods. (For example, the pork is slow cooked, similar to Cuban style; the chicken is fried, then pulled from the bones and chopped, skin and all.)

The Jibarito is an unusual reversal of the typical sandwich texture: creamy (via the “plantain” bread) on the outside and chewy on the inside. It is also an odd blend of old and new—the Latin heritage diluted by a layering of pedestrian American sandwich ingredients (iceberg lettuce, unripe tomatoes, American cheese, mayonnaise). Judging from the crowded tables, the sandwich is extremely popular; it is also extremely regionalized. But maybe not for long—because that’s how immigrant culture spreads in this country, sandwich by sandwich.

This isn’t the first time I’ve poured out my sandwich love or written about my theory that they are this country’s first fusion food. You can read some of this previously published material in Esquire and Travel + Leisure.

When I am working on a story for Travel + Leisure, it’s my job to hit a city’s culinary highlights. But I always make it a point to start with that city’s signature dish as a way of understanding local history. Iconic regional dishes can be used to reveal the roots of local immigration and determine what each ethnic group brought to the community culture.

The great chef John Besh explained to me that New Orleans is unique as a historical port because it was settled with very little Anglican influence, and that the one-pots (like gumbo) are a link to its cultural mix of Spanish and French colonists with a large enslaved Afro-Caribbean community. He told me to look at those long lists of herbs and spices: “Everyone stirred a little bit of their culture into the pot.”  Or, when I was working my way through the menu at a Zingerman’s Roadhouse in Ann Arbor Michigan (specializing in “Great American Food,” regional dishes from around the country), I learned the background of chicken fried steak. Due to the prominent role Germans and Austrians had in settling Texas, it doesn’t take much to view that dish as a frontier translation of Wiener Schnitzel (staple of Central European cuisine).

The connection is even more obvious with sandwiches. Most of the country’s great urban sandwich places are in former factory (and working) neighborhoods where immigrants quickly set up shop and folded their native ingredients (and/or cooking methods) into mainstream cuisine. As the quickest way to layer the tastes of the old country into the new, sandwiches are probably our original fusion food.

There are plenty of American regional sandwiches (with accompanying stories) like the Beef-on-Weck in Buffalo or Loosemeats in Sioux City, IA. But I decided to limit myself to tracing the outline of the country, starting in Maine and working down the coast to Miami, over to New Orleans and then across the Texas land border, up the West Coast and across the Northern boundary to Chicago.

This was not an exercise in “best:” I am not much of a food ranker. I like to think about context, and although there may not always be perfect symmetry between city and sandwich, here is my version of the United States, according to sandwiches.

From Maine to Connecticut, the lobster and clam roll
There might not be a specific ethnic link for the lobster roll (many folks like Red’s Eats, Wiscasset, Maine, a picturesque road side stand that’s been around since 1938).  But there is an “embarrassment of riches” aspect, common in many immigrant family kitchens. In the 1988 film Mystic Pizza, townie waitress Daisy (Julia Roberts), invited to the summer home of a rich WASP boyfriend (played by Adam Storke in a classic James Spader role), is less than thrilled when dinner turns out to be lobster—a staple in her family’s household because her Portuguese-American mother works in a lobster plant on the docks.

Maine was the site of the first recorded European colony in 1604 and according to the state’s Department of Marine Resources, lobster fishing is “probably the oldest, continuously operated industry on the North American continent.” Prior to commercialization, every lobster caught in Maine stayed in Maine. (Early records are scarce, but in 2000, the lobster harvest yielded 57,000,000 pounds.)  So imagine what lobster was at one time: poverty food. Indentured servants (who exchanged labor for passage to America) had it written into their contracts that they would not have to eat it more than three times a week, and a law guaranteed prisoners the same protection (cruel and unusual punishment by crustacean).

To me, a heap of lobster in a roll that requires a good grip is nothing more than a device to turn seafood into a solid meal: heavier, heartier family fare is typically achieved by adding bread (even those crunchy Trenton oyster crackers soaked in chowders qualify).

The same theory can be applied to the clam roll, a shoreline staple along the Connecticut coast. Since the Native Americans showed colonists how to harvest clams (the white shells were carved into beads and used for currency, or “wampum”), shell-fishing has been a vital part of the state’s economy. But you can’t feed your family a steady diet of clams on the half shell, which accounts for some of the heartier regional clam dishes, like New Haven’s famous clam pizza.

In Madison, Lenny and Joe’s Fish Tale serves a clam roll made with breaded whole or full-bellied clams (also known as Ipswich or steamer clams, these have a thin brittle shell which doesn’t completely close because of its protruding long neck or siphon). No pre-breading and sitting around for these clams. Instead, they are batter-dipped, rolled in cracker meal, and fried to order. Since the breading is done at the last moment, the clams remain completely coated, forming a protective crust on contact with the hot oil which produces the internal steam necessary to properly cook the clam, and in the process, creates a sandwich of delicious contrasts: crispy but tender.

A regional requirement: both of these sandwiches must be served on a toasted top-loading New England hot dog bun, which looks like a small rectangular “box” made of white bread. I imagine it was invented like this: a hungry guy in a hurry took a piece of toast and folded it in half with one hand, letting the seam rest along his palm like a trough. Then he filled it up.

Pastrami in New York
More than a decade ago, the late Abe Lebewohl, founder of the Second Avenue Deli, showed me how to hand-slice pastrami. Now this is an instinctive art. You have to be able to “feel” the pastrami because each one is different, taking into consideration how hard or soft the meat is after steaming as well as the fat content. Placing a whole brine-cured and smoked beef belly on a narrow wooden counter (where it fit perfectly into the indentation shaped by the thousands that went before it), Abe trimmed off the crisp, spicy edges, pushing them into a little mound and motioned for me to “eat, eat.” I left that day with a securely foil-wrapped packet of still warm and beautifully fatty pastrami in my purse, feeling like I was transporting an organ.

Although it is more of a global village now, the Lower East Side of Manhattan was once the epicenter of Eastern European immigration, packed with pushcarts peddlers and synagogues, and Abe, known as the Mayor of Second Avenue, was a throw back to the day when that street was lined with theaters and called the “Yiddish Broadway.” Like Ukrainian refuge Lebewohl, pastrami has deep Jewish roots (explanation better left to an expert like Joan Nathan)  even appearing as a cultural stereotype in Woody Allen’s great urban romance Annie Hall (1977), when Midwestern transplant Hall (Diane Keaton) orders a “pastrami on white bread with, uh, mayonnaise and tomatoes and lettuce,” and New Yorker Alvy Singer (Woody) looks embarrassed and then a little afraid.

I have my own procedure: Order pastrami on rye—no trimmings or toppings. When the sandwich arrives, use my thumbs to pick up the edges of the bread (as though I am shuffling cards) and then, because the fat to meat ratio is never exactly “right,” peer down at the pastrami and give a little philosophical shrug. Add mustard.

In 1996, the wonderful Abe Lebewohl was murdered while making a deposit at a local bank. I went back to the deli once after that, but it didn’t feel right. Then it closed. But recently, I read that his nephew opened a relocated Second Avenue Deli, where I have yet to go.

Philadelphia and its connection to New Orleans
Slide down the map until you get to Philadelphia, the largest fresh water port in the world and surely the sandwich capital of America. This is a city with several iconic regional specialties: cheese steak, roast pork, and the hoagie are a few.  For this purpose, I settled on using the hoagie, reportedly named for the Italian immigrants who labored in the iron and steel building naval shipyards on Hog Island (the world’s largest shipyard during WWI). The “hoggie” was a meal on the move with all the flavors of home: an assortment of cured pork meats (prosciutto, sopressata and coppa), sharp provolone cheese, and a make-shift salad of sorts (lettuce, tomatoes, onions and hot peppers, dressed with oil, vinegar and a pinch of dried oregano). The bread—typically a crunchy seeded crust with a soft but substantial interior—was merely transportation.

At this point, jump over to the port of New Orleans because one of its signature sandwiches—the muffuletta—is exactly the same as a hoagie—only different. Like two dialects of the same language, the central elements are there: a layering of meats (with the inclusion of mortadella, a pork bologna) and cheese. But while Philadelphia’s turn-of-the-century Italian settlers came from the Southern provinces of Italy, 90% of those who came thru New Orleans were from Sicily. That explains why their sandwich (“invented” in about 1906 to feed that city’s wharf workers) is on round, soft, slightly hollow Sicilian bread (or muffuletta), and the standard hoagie salad toppings are translated into an idiosyncratic pickled olive-laden vegetable medley, distantly related to the regional Sicilian specialty of caponata (a sweet and sour eggplant relish reminder that Sicily is a leading olive and caper growing area).

When I made this very same American iconic regional sandwich trip years ago, I got a warm muffuletta at the Napoleon House and a toasted Frenchuletta (on a baguette) at Luizza’s. But like most visitors, I also went to Central Grocery in Viuex Carre or French Quarter, once known locally as Little Sicily. Slightly spongy (to absorb the olive salad) and intersected by a ribbon of meat/cheese filling, this huge muffuletta is pre-cut into quarters and wrapped in old-fashioned sturdy white paper. Although the highly-hyped grocery may look like a tourist trap, don’t be put off by the discarded Barq’s root beer bottles, crumbled Zapp potato chip bags, or the long lines. The people of Central Grocery are sandwich professionals.

(There is also a link between NOLA’s shrimp/oyster po’ boy and Connecticut’s fried clam roll: both turn local seafood into heartier fare. I got my po’boy from Parkway Tavern, at the corner of Hagan and Toulouse, overlooking Bayou St. John.)

Breaded and fried shrimp (served with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and pickles) on distinctive New Orleans–style French bread (lightly crisp crust, interior as airy as cotton candy) from celebrated Leidenheimer Bakery.

Editor’s note: Part 2 covers the iconic sandwiches of the American South, Southwest, West Coast and Midwest.

Author of several cookbooks, Masthead writer for Esquire and Travel + Leisure, and a 2009 winner of an ASME National Magazine Award for her work on Esquire’s collaborative feature, Almanac of Steak, Francine Maroukian’s passion for food is unmistakable, though not what you might expect from someone whose livelihood is centered around New York fine dining.  Rather, Francine craves simplicity; earnest food that reflects the people who make it and the people who eat it.  Francine finds the “trickery” of food exhausting – the elaborate and confusing productions that once dominated high end restaurants – instead opting for a return to basics, an expression of one’s roots.  In her view, sandwiches are the “antidote to fanciness, but only when not overdone or over-presented.”

Having lived and worked in New York for 20 years as a caterer and writer, Francine is now a Philadelphia resident by choice, which she describes as “the most interesting food city in America.”  A former factory town, once known as The Workshop of the World, Philadelphia has a rich history of everyday food, food that can be eaten while standing, while working.  Philadelphia is best known for its contributions to political Democracy, but should also be recognized for its advancing culinary democracy – the kind of food found in bars, pubs and sandwich shops – food that is not about restricting access but about freedom.  The bountiful agriculture of Pennsylvania, which Francine likens to Northern California without the marketing dollars, offers the Philadelphia region some of the nation’s very best and freshest meats, produce and dairy.  And on Philadelphia’s most celebrated and prolific restaurateur Stephen Starr, who Francine calls “part party planner, part urban planner,” she believes the city should erect a statue in his honor for his revitalization of Philadelphia through its restaurant scene.

So what are her favorite sandwiches?  The simple ones, of course: a savory sandwich, sans condiments, eaten in the morning.  Having recently traveled to San Francisco, Francine has been enjoying hand crafted salumi from Fra’mani and Molinari, but also loves authentic classic luncheonettes like Shank’s & Evelyn’s and John’s Roast Pork.  An accomplished cook in her own right, Francine finds great local buys at the Headhouse farmer’s market, Superior Ravioli at the Italian Market and Old City Cheese at Reading Terminal Market. She also enjoys making roasted chicken thighs with provolone on an onion roll, or sliced boneless short ribs on a whole wheat English muffin.  But what Francine really values is the time-tested preparation, recipes and ingredients passed down through generations.  She even visualizes her mother’s hands when she cooks the very same dishes in the very same style that she enjoyed growing up.

This week, Unbreaded is proud to publish Francine’s essay on sandwiches “The United States Of Sandwiches.”  Equal parts anthropology lesson and mouth watering to-do list, Francine provides historical context for the iconic sandwiches from around the country and how a nation of immigrants developed the original fusion food; after all, a sandwich at its core is simply meat, salad and transportation.

But first, here are the ground rules Francine sends to people who ask where to get what sandwich:

Eating A Regional Sandwich: How To Behave.

1. Maybe you have a friend who raves about his or her hometown sandwich and maybe, even after you eat one, you don’t really get the big deal. Keep this to yourself. Sandwich/city criticism is not the privilege of an outsider. The emotional pull of a hometown sandwich has to do with nostalgia and other intangibles like “roots” and neighborhood loyalty.

2. When a highly touted sandwich joint looks like a hole-in-the-wall, it’s probably operating in its original location and deserves respect as a community institution.

3. Perhaps your discerning palate cries out for a sprinkling of locally harvested arugula or a slather of raw milk sheep cheese. Believe me, no one—especially not the sandwich maker—cares about your “improvements.” Just order and move along.

4. Most famous sandwich places pack in the tourists and can be super crowded. As the line in front of you shrinks, you can feel the number of hungry people growing behind you. Pressure builds. Don’t waste time by dithering: listen and learn the proper ordering code. Since the counter people have heard it all, there might even be an instructional sign.

5. Stop and pay homage to the bread; it is always an important part of a sandwich’s mythology.

Editor’s Note: Read Francine Maroukian’s article, “The United States Of Sandwiches” on Thursday, May 14 (part 1) and Friday, May 15 (part 2), exclusively on Unbreaded.com.

Tonight begins Passover, the yearly ritual retelling of the Jewish story of Exodus.  But mostly, it’s about eating.

A central element of the traditional seder dinner is eating a Hillel sandwich: a scoop of fruity-nutty-chutney called charoset and a spoonful of horseradish between two pieces of matzoh (unleveaned flatbread.)  This sandwich, we believe, is the very first sandwich to be recorded and preserved through history.

Born in Babylonia but “the man” in Jerusalem, Rabbi Hillel was the preeminent figure of Jewish study in the 1st Century BC (BCE.)  As a centerpiece of the Passover seder, he thought to combine the three major symbols of the meal into one compact bite: matzoh, bitter herbs and roast lamb.

Wait.  What’s that about roast lamb?

The modern Hillel sandwich is a far cry from the sage Rabbi’s original creation.  Over time, charoset has taken the place of the roast lamb, likely out of necessity and availability.  Even matzoh, the iconic “bread” of Passover, has taken on a form that is likely quite different from the original Bedouin flatbread.

So tonight, as Jews eat their Hillel sandwiches, consider this: how badass could a real Hillel sandwich be — roast leg of lamb and chopped horseradish wrapped in a wood fired flatbread?

Tell us about your perfect Hillel sandwich in the comments.

Charoset Recipe:

Yield: 3 cups

* 6 peeled apples, coarsely chopped
* 2/3 c chopped almonds
* 3 tbsp sugar, or to taste
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon
* grated rind of 1 lemon
* 4 tbsp sweet red wine

Combine all, mixing thoroughly. Add wine as need. Blend to desired texture- some like it coarse and crunchy, others prefer it ground to a paste. Chill.

Source: “The Jewish Holiday Kitchen” by Joan Nathan 1988

One of our favorite Italian-Americans and an expert on Italian meats, Giulia Umile, educates us on the nuances of Italian cured pork.

Domestic Prosciutto
Curing ham is an art involving only a few different elements: salting, temperature and time. For twelve months, artisans move the hams from room to room in the curing facility so that different temperatures and humidities can play their part in the curing process. A truly versatile food, Prosciutto can be used virtually anywhere; from cooked dishes to antipasto to an elegant snack. It pairs well with crusty bread, peppers, olives and sharp cheeses.

Prosciutto Di Parma
From the regions of Parma and Langhirano of Emilia-Romagna and one of Italy’s finest foods.  Aged for over twelve months, Prosciutto di Parma contains only 2 ingredients; pork and sea salt. The special curing process is what gives this meat its outstanding flavors and texture.  Passed down for generations and made under strict quality conditions, the tradition and skill of curing this ham consists of hand rubbing each leg of pork with a precise amount of sea salt to make sure the cure is ideal. The prosciutto then moves from curing room to curing room, each with different temperatures and humidity settings to moderate the curing process.

Genoa Salami-Artificial Casing and Natural Casing
Named after Genoa, the city in which it was born. A fine textured pork sausage full of garlic and spices that is arguably the most popular variety of Italian dried sausage in the US.  It is typically aged for over 3 months, during which time a cord is wrapped lengthwise around the sausage at regular intervals to form its shape.

Hot Capicola
Capicola is a traditional sausage produced in a number of regions of Italy. It’s made exclusively from the pork butt, which is aged for a minimum of thirty days in brine before being packed into a casing, where it is cooked and further aged to allow the flavor to develop. Hot Capicola is typically seasoned with crushed red hot peppers, salt and garlic to complement the rich flavor of the pork with a spicy hot accent. Hot Capicola can be paired with Italian bread and provolone to make an authentic Italian sandwich.

Sweet & Hot Sopressata
This typical Salami, characterized by a distinctive flavor, was traditionally produced for centuries in the Southern Italian old-country farmhouses and villages (originated in Calabria). It is made of coarse-ground pork, so it has a different texture and flavor than the more widely known, finer-ground salamis. Sweet Sopressata is seasoned with garlic, salt and black pepper, and cured up to nine months in a natural casing. Hot sopressata is made in the same method, however spicy hot peppers are added before the curing process for that extra kick and red color throughout the sausage.

Mortadella
Originating in Bologna (nickname “la grassa”, which means fat), Mortadella is made of finely ground pork mixed together with cubes of high quality pork fat (from the throat) and sometimes pistachios or pine nuts. It gets its name from the Roman word for “mortar”; in ancient times, a mortar and pestle were often used to grind meats, fruits, and grains.  These ingredients are combined in casing and hung to slowly cook in brick ovens for up to 24 hours.  Mortadella is best enjoyed with an excellent piece of Italian bread, and not much else.

Pancetta
Often called Italian bacon-however unlike American bacon- pancetta is not smoked, but rather is cured with a variety of spices, herbs, and garlic. Pancetta is usually rolled and tied in a cylindrical shape, then hung to dry. Pancetta that is made in Florence, however, is left flat.

Bresaola
The leanest of the Italian cured meats, bresaola is salted and air-dried beef from the tenderloin or fillet. It is dried for up to three months, and when finished is a deep ruby-red color. Unlike other Italian meats, there is very little visible fat.

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What makes me an expert?
1. First generation American; both parents were born in Abruzzi and moved to the US during their teen years.
2. Raised in a family rich in Italian culture; I’ve spoken both languages since I was 3.
3. My father owned a salumeria in West Philadelphia the majority of my life, and specialized in Italian meats and cheeses. He also owned an authentic Italian café across the street, where he served amazing Italian coffees and gelato.
4. We cured our own salami in the basement of our West Philadelphia row home.
5. My name is Giulia Umile. Enough said. If I was a boy, my name would have been Umberto.