Building the Best Sandwich

NOTE: No pics yet, as I'm trying to reacquaint myself with blogging, and my digital camera literally has dust on it.  I could use my smart phone to take a picture. But I still work (incorrectly) under the assumption that pictures from a smart phone are for suckers.

We at Casa de Hopkins have taken up a challenge that involves creating the best sandwich using ingredients culled from local supermarkets. The reason? Well, two reasons, really:

1. We like sandwiches, as they make for an easy dinner project.
2. There is a novelty to finding out what works for us. In essence, we're using a loose version of the scientific method to creating the best sandwich. We critique each meal we create, and try to find each one's weakness and strength. This amuses both of us to no end.

What we've learned thus far?

• The bread used is critical. That may sound obvious at first, but even when you start playing around with using baguettes, ciabattas, or other similar "artisinal"-type breads, there are still winners and losers. But mostly we've learned that sliced bread is not the place to start. Our favorite thus far? Pretzel rolls.
• Meat by itself is not enough for a great sandwich. Not even if you add bacon or some version of salami.
• Mouth-feel is critical, equal to that of taste.

So far, our top sandwich is a turkey breast with genoa salami and havarti cheese, heated at 500 degrees for 7 minutes, and then served on a non-toasted pretzel roll with lettuce, tomatoes and some sort of dressing. It's good, but not great. I will try to document future sandwiches (along with pics) in the future.  

Baloney and Salami

I want to let you know right off of the bat that I am weird. Unlike some, I do not wear this as a badge of honor. Rather, I make the claim to forewarn you, as some of the stuff I will write will be difficult to understand without understanding its context. To explain that context would require reams of expository text as well as a fair bit oftime. These are indulgences that I'd rather not give in to at the moment. So, as a shortcut, anything that you read that you do not understand from this point forward, just chalk it up to , "Well Kate? Kate is weird."

With that in mind, let me open the door to my past just a wee bit. When I was in third grade, so many, many years ago, I believed that a baloney sandwich was the height of adulthood. In my mind, children ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Adults? Adults ate baloney sandwiches.

It was soon afterwards that I amended this theory. Adults ate salami sandwiches. Children ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Baloney? Baloney was dull and uninspired. Especially on white bread.

I state all of this because I am about to begin on a new quest. I am going to explore the world of charcuterie and cold cuts. And this little bit of insight into my my youthful mindset is going to be the foundation of all of this.

See? What did I tell you? I might as well have written toyou that I collect butterflies, or have an extensive beer can collection. Instead, you get a first hand exploration of the deli counter.

Weird.

The Place of Food

If you want to push my buttons, it's to put the topic of food under the 'Lifestyle" category. Food is no more of a lifestyle choice than our biological excretions.

At the very beginning, food is simply a means of gaining nutrition andenergy, and is therefore biological. From that point, it becomes a commodity, bringing it under the 'Economic' umbrella. As we are biologically omnivores, it means that we are not dealing with one commodity, but thousands.  The selection of food from those thousands of options rely upon its accessibility, putting it under, at first, the geographical umbrella, and then back to the economic, as we seek different types of food not readily available in our immediate region.

At the macro-level, because one metric of economics is currency, this lends itself to the political. Once you establish the political, it establishes the need for the historical, in order to better understand the context of the current era.

At the micro-level, the economics of food can confer status (i.e. those with more money can afford types of food that those lacking money cannot). It is this that helps drive the cultural. Only at that point does the word 'lifestyle' become applicable. 

It gets more complicated at this point, as the word 'lifestyle' can connote intent. But in reality, everyone has their own food 'lifestyle', even if one does not consciously choose one.  The act of deliberately choosing a food 'lifestyle' is a privilege conferred by the state of one's finances or associated class status.

Let me be clear, 'privilege' is not something one needs to address, but neither is it undeniable. Today, as of this writing, I have the ability to purchase a ticket to Alinea and a round trip ticket to Chicago, without undue financial burden. That matters to some degree. Or rather, my ability to do that, and the inability for others to do that, matters. That difference shapes our relationship to food.

Is food a 'lifestyle'? But it is so much more than that. By focusing solely on the lifestyle aspect, it does a great disservice to the topic and how food relates to us as individuals, how it relates to our immediate environment,  how it relates to the country in which we live, and how it does so to the world at large.