The Context of Sandwiches

I've had a week or so to digest this - I don't think I've been entirely fair to sandwiches (collectively) as a food. I think I have a solid track record of fully embracing the burger, but for a time sandwiches and I had a tenuous past.

I have a relatively long-standing pococurantism regarding sandwiches. I think that it largely stems from a time when I was exposed to cold-cut sandwiches for several meals in a row in circumstances where I felt relatively powerless, and to that end I began to view sandwiches (or the eating thereof) as a mark of failure. Specifically, cold cuts on white bread. Or wheat.

Now, it wasn't always this way. When I was a kid I delighted in nothing more than a mound of pastrami adhered to two slices of Iron Kids with a coating of French's yellow. It was Glory, man. I also ate thousands of peanut butter variants, beginning with grape jelly, then slowly migrating to honey or strawberry preserves as a youngster. Later on, especially in high school. my buddy Kent and I would skip lunch to come home and fry of some bologna and eat it with a little mayo. And of course, the simple bacon sandwich (with just enough MiracleWwhip to keep it from being dry) will always have a place in my heart.

My mother began the trend, of course, and to this day I witness her creations as a softer, more refined version, with turkey or deli-sliced ham, served with lettuce and tomato and properly cut before serving, a healthier, more tasteful, more feminine and more tasteful arrangement.

Now my father is a legendary sandwich eater, though of a more exotic variety. I have personally seen him eat culinary delections of an appalling nature, at least to me; among them, a peanut butter, mayonnaise and lettuce Creation. However, at the end of the spectrum, he does enjoy a nice, thick smoked ham (not the thin sliced deli fabrication) but the thick carved sliced removed from the bone itself, liberally treated with mayo, perhaps with cheese, possibly with chips, and probably with a nice cold beer. Well done, sir. Of these people my sandwich lineage was founded

Later still, I remember my dad making us ham and cheese sandwiches when we would go play paintball, and I ate these sandwiches with the knowledge that my Dad loved me and cared enough about me to make sure I had lunch, even at 20. What would have ordinarily been a standard sandwich became a kingly meal for a valiant fighting man, and my chest swelled with pride while eating it.

I also learned about the French Dip sandwich and a Hot Ham &Cheese from Memories - a Finer Diner during this time, and even had a chicken-fried steak creation or two from Sonic now and again. I also dabbled in a multi-decked peanut butter and jam creation, accompanied by Lay's originals and massive glasses of frosty cold chocolate milk, and once ruined by my cat Inky when when brought in a live dove, who promptly shed distressed feathers all over my sandwich before being immediately Nolan Ryan'd out of the kitchen by my mother in a surprising display of athletic prowess. The club sandwich came into vogue as well during this time, and I ate them with abandon when surrounded by french fries and a cold soda, especially with my friend Tara.

Still later, while studying at WBU, I found I enjoyed the meatball sub at Subway, but this would be the beginning of the decline.

Then came the summer of 2001, and the sandwich was ruined. And again in the winter of 2002, when they were again foisted upon me. I began to rebel against my roots, turning my nose up at sandwiches. I was haughty - they were gauche, and if I had to be someplace against my will in a situation I couldn't control and didn't like with people whom I felt had no regard for my wants and needs I surely was not going to eat their sandwiches. And the die was cast.

I avoided sandwiches in their entirety until 2005, resenting the sandwich and all it stood for: failure, loss of control, helplessness, a symbol of forced submission, and tastelessness.

I eventually began dating again, and I would discover a love for a previously uninvestigated wonder - the shrimp and bacon Po-Boy from Sweetwater's in Denton. This opened the gate for another relationship, and another sandwich vendor - Jason;s Deli, a place I had previously striven to avoid. It was there the ice would begin to melt a but under the warm, salty, juicy weight of the Beefeater and the Hot Pastrami, served alongside a bowl or red beans and rice. It would be the summer and fall of 2005 that would again lay the foundation for the return of the sandwich. Yet when the relationship ended, so did my ability to eat at Jason's - for quite a long time.

Still, I could not, would not eat a sandwich unless it was a necessity, or I was trying to impress a girl, or at least avoid a fight. I ate peanut butter, but grudgingly, and avoided all cold cuts except in moments of self-flagellation, when I would eat them as a means of punishing myself, generally for failing to make enough money. They were again a food non grata, a penance for failure.

Perhaps later, almost inevitably, it would be in the company of a girl that I would venture to eat cold-cut sandwiches once again, though not with ham - only roast beef and turkey combined. White or wheat, it would be in her company that the nprevu\iously reprehensible food would become again palatable, this furthering sealing the gap between me and the despised structure of carbs and protein.

Though the years passed, I began to prepare sandwiches for others; grilled cheese for my daughter, occasionally a hot ham and cheese for myself. I came to realize that I could eat a hot sandwich well enough. For some reason that wasn't so reprehensible, perhaps because on some level, they reminded me of a time when my life had not grown so difficult.

Then one day I saw a documentary called "Sandwiches You Will Like" on PBS - Toni and I watched it on what would have been an otherwise hopeless and miserable 4th of July for me, and sandwiches began to show a resurgence of hope.

In an attempt to regain control of some lost part of my psyche, I began to occasionally to try different sandwiches when the mood was right, a Louisiana Po-Boy here, an odd return to Jason's deli there, until one day, I was extended an offer to go to a Chicago style deli with some friends of mine.

Iit was a complete disaster for me personally - truth be told, I was ill-equipped and unprepared to eat these sandwiches, and I really didn't even like them all that much, but the fact I was wanted and invited and loved more than made up for a sandwich I wouldn't eat again unless I had to. I went back a second time, still hating the sandwiches but loving the camaraderie, and I think the tenuous hold began to slip for real.

A few weeks ago my managers brought in piles of cold cuts from Costco for lunch - I made two sandwiches, on of them piled at least three inches high with pastrami, ham, turkey, and chicken, treated with spicy brown mustard and held in place between two slices of Iron Kids atop a mound of Cool ranch Doritos. And man - it was delicious.

You know what, though? I think the best part of it was that it was MY decision to make my own sandwich, and that I;m finally (again) at a point in my life where I can eat one and not allow it to make me feel like a failure.

Or maybe it was just a really good sandwich. Just the good ones, though.


Either way, I'm OK with sandwiches again.