Monday, August 24, 2009

Inbloguration

Like so many people, I have recently been inspired by the film 'Julie & Julia'. Whilst I wasn't sure quite what I wanted to write about, I knew that I wanted to write and I knew that it was going to involve food. And so I came to the Internet, armed only with the desire to be inspired, rather than inspiration itself.


I've spent the following two days arranging this blog, changing the name, the colours, the web-address etc but without settling on a topic about which to write. I think that having a topic is important as I don't want this to become a meandering, mindless unloading of my various whims and thoughts (as I'm sure this would be incredibly dull). Instead, writing consistently about something that I'm interested in seems much more worthwhile.


So, whilst searching for a topic that I would encounter often enough to write consistently about without too much effort, and could expand on greatly with only a little effort, I opened my backpack and took out my lunch. Today's lunch: two sandwiches in individual plastic bags, made yesterday during a typical late-night sandwich making session. And so inspiration arrived in my lap (and later, in my mouth).


I should explain my relationship with sandwiches, my sandwich philosophy and the origin of this fascination.


Sandwiches at Large:

I love sandwiches. I think that they might be the most versatile form of food, precisely because sandwiches are not limited by style, cuisine, or ingredients. Instead they are a way to arrange food rather than a way to create food. The sandwich is not a style, but rather a convenient way of holding something (whatever that may be) together and experiencing a number of flavours at once.


That is not to say that they are to be looked down on as a culinary afterthought. I often feel that sandwiches are a last resort, inspiring memories of dry, disgusting lunchtime experiences during school or hastily compiled arrangements of last night's leftovers lumped together in odd combinations on a lazy Sunday. Sandwiches are worth effort - just because something is arranged between bread for convenience, that doesn't mean it should afford any less care than any other meal. You are going to eat it after all - what excuse is there for eating a single piece of low quality ham with a dab of margarine? You wouldn't do it if there was no bread would you?

So perhaps that's the problem - sandwiches are seen as a way to make bread interesting, a quick fix or a way to use up leftover food.


My Sandwich Philosophy:

My sandwich philosophy revolves around the idea of layers. Because of the traditional (i.e. 2 slices of standard bread) composition of sandwiches, the ingredients of a sandwich exist in a vertical relationship with each other, with each ingredient touching at least one other ingredient, but not necessarily with all ingredients touching each other. Therefore there are two types of relationship in a sandwich - touching vertical relationships (TVR - ingredients touching each other within a sandwich) and overall sandwich relationship (OSR - all ingredients, touching and non-touching) I think that a perfect sandwich is created when each TVR is approached with as much consideration as the composition of the sandwich as a whole. Any ingredient in a sandwich should exist in perfect harmony with any TVRs, whilst also complimenting (but to a lesser extent) all flavours within the OSR .

An example: Today's lunch was constructed as follows


Bread (brown)
Mayonnaise (Hellmans Olive Oil)

 
Black Pepper


Sliced tomato


Salt


Deli sliced tandoori chicken (by deli sliced I mean similar to sandwich ham slices)


Roasted garlic humous


Bread

Consider the TVR's in this sandwich:

Mayonnaise/pepper/Tomato


Tomato/salt/chicken


Chicken/humous


These are very good flavour combinations and so they are experienced together as you bite into a sandwich. Tomato and humous go ok together, humous and mayonnaise don't really make a difference to each other but every ingredient fits into a tasty whole whilst contributing heavily to a number of TVR's - the basis for a good sandwich.


Origin of Philosophy:


This fascination with sandwiches is something that has developed considerably over the last 5 years. It began with my dad, a man who is forever putting odd combinations of food between slices of bread. When I was younger I would often ask what he was eating and wrinkle my nose up in disgust at the list of ingredients that he gave me (Worcester Sauce, Piccalilli and sausage for example) and yet they always smelled delicious. My dad is of the school of using up leftovers by wrapping them in bread, but will add as many condiments as it takes to make it something more than the dull experience of last night's meal eaten cold.


Later in life I had a variety of jobs at fast food establishments to make money before and during university. The last of these was a job as a Sandwich Artist at Subway (I agree that the name is pretentious nonsense). One of Subway's mottos is that you should be able to 'taste every ingredient in every bite' of a sandwich. This is an idea that appeals to me - each ingredient should be arranged in such away that every taste is the same as the last and (hopefully) delicious. They also encouraged trying different combinations of meats and sauces so that you could suggest something to a mystified customer, or encourage someone not to just have mayonnaise with everything. After sampling every, my favourite sandwich to have as a staff meal was, as I called it, a chicken tikka pizza. This was a simple combination of the pizza sub (pepperoni, marinara sauce, cheese on top and toasted) and chicken tikka pieces (only available in the UK as far as I'm aware), topped with pizza-like veg (i.e. no lettuce) and topped off with BBQ sauce and (a now extinct) deli mustard/horseradish sauce.


This combination of 3 different sauces may sound odd but I assure you it was delicious. The sweetness of the BBQ sauce with the sinusy-heat of the deli mustard was fantastic. I encourage experimenting with Subway sauces in this way - after all it is the sauce that becomes the overriding flavour within a sandwich and so can completely change your sandwich experience.


With these philosophies to build on, I've gradually become more and more involved in the sandwich making process to the point that my sister once came into the kitchen (where I was making sandwiches for the two of us) to tell me that I had been gone for an hour and ask if there was going to be a sandwich any time soon.


This is not to say that I think all sandwiches should be masterpieces. I recognise that sometimes you just want to slap some ham on a piece of bread, fold it in half and cram it into your face. I myself am rather partial to the odd ketchup sandwich - hastily constructed just to have something to chew on. Instead I think that the sandwich can be so much more and I want to share my exploration of this food format with others.


Mission:

This blog therefore will be a collection of sandwich thoughts, my own recipes, recommendations, reviews and other sandwich related nonsense as I pursue my interest and hopefully find others who share it. Enjoy and make sandwiches matter!

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