We sometimes dig into some deep subjects, such as organics and weight management. Well, deep subjects for us, your mileage may vary? This is not one of those posts. This post is spawned from something much simpler; the sandwich. A sandwich seems like such a simple food delivery device of bread and filling. It turns out not so much, and while there is no accounting for personal taste, there is a set of elements that make a sandwich work or not work.
Background
Many of us have heard the story of the Earl of Sandwich and his gambling that spawned the sandwich. It was bread and beef, but that is what it is today? What about the submarine, grinder, hot dog, or burrito? It turns out both the FDA and USDA govern the definition of sandwich. Not only do they govern it, some states have their take on it. Stranger still, or maybe not, it varies from country to country with groups like the British Sandwich Association or BSA.
All of this seems more of something to keep lawyers busy than anything to do with food. That makes it an interesting sidebar but not something that helps us. Let’s use this information to set context that we will be considering only a case of a closed sandwich rather than anything else. What is a closed sandwich? We will call it two or more pieces of bread that contain filling between them.
Callout, You do You
We are looking to learn how we can create a perfect sandwich, and what it means to us. We are not telling people to not go out and make the sloppiest sandwich known to humanity. The same goes for restaurants that serve sandwiches or burgers the size of someone’s head. It’s not our jam but we dig others may like it. You do you. This is also why we will leave the recipes for sandwiches to someone like Alton Brown and other chefs. It was his show that spawned the idea behind the post. We wanted to dig a bit further than he did.
Why? Who Cares?
As usual, we are doing this as much as a thought experiment for us as much as we are for others to ponder. When I order a sandwich, I don’t want to receive something that I can’t eat without a bib or knife and fork. Worse still, when I bite into a sandwich I don’t want the fillings to be shot out of the other side. In both cases, if I have to use a fork and knife to eat it, it is not a sandwich. It just feels like bad craftsmanship and a waste of food. Ok, I will step down from my soapbox now.
Still, why does that matter to others? It is very simple to us. The entire point of a sandwich was to be able to carry on something while using a single hand to eat with. Whether you fish, play cards, read during lunch, or any of a myriad of other activities, the purpose of a sandwich was to only occupy a single clean hand to consume nutrition without utensils.
Combine that thought with the want of good food and there is the reason for why. We’re good with a baloney and cheese sandwich sometimes. Other times, not so much. A grilled cheese sandwich can be sublime in the same way a tuna sandwich can be. Where things get more complicated is, say a chicken salad on wheat.
It’s the Water!
What makes or breaks most meals is water content. A good cook knows how to manipulate the water content of food to create something more than just palatable but enjoyable. Here is why water, and manipulating it, is so important.
Water boils at sea level at 212℉. If you want moisture in your food, you can’t raise the temperature over that number or the food will start to dry. When water is present in food, cooking it initially produces steam, which prevents creating a crust as you would for, say, toast. As heat penetrates the food, the outer layers’ temperatures go up and caramelization or browning via the Maillard reaction starts. The real trick is to make everything from moist fried chicken to toast to a seared yet juicy burger is about balancing water evaporation as the food cooks.
This balance of wet and dry, soft and hard drives the mouthfeel of what we are eating. In fried chicken, you get the crunchy crust around the juicy meat. In a seared burger, you taste a bit of the char with the still moist meat. With toast, we end up with a crisp caramelized surface with, depending on slice thickness, a soft center. It is in that balance where basic nutrition becomes great food.
The Balance of Structure with Wet and Dry
Sandwiches need the same manipulation of wet and dry as any other type of food. Additionally, sandwiches must provide a structure which makes them a little more complicated. It’s this relationship that can make or break a good sandwich. Let’s put down some axioms to help us form a sandwich construction rubric.
First Axiom: The harder the bread, the more pressure exerted on the contents when bitten, but the less moisture will impact it.
Second Axiom: The softer the bread, the easier it is to bite, but it’s much more susceptible to falling apart by getting soggy with wet ingredients.
Third Axiom: For a sandwich to stay together, the layers must provide enough friction against each other to keep the sandwich from sliding apart.
Fourth Axiom: A sandwich is not a bread bowl or bowl of any type so it should not hold ingredients that need that level of containment.
Let’s dig in a bit more on all of these.
The Big 3
Our first axiom is about dealing with hard bread and/or toasted bread. The harder the crust of a sandwich is, the more bite pressure it takes to get through it. That pressure is then transferred to the filling of the sandwich. That is great if we have a deli-meat and cheese sandwich, which creates a flat structure.
If we add avocado on that sandwich or use that bread to make a toasted tuna fish, the results won’t be great. In sandwiches, softer ingredients don’t always play well with harder ingredients and are usually ejected from the sandwich, onto you. We need to balance how much give is left in the bread to allow it to contain the ingredients when bitten.
In the second axiom, we know that when we add wet ingredients to soft bread, it can become, well, soup, not bread. By using a firmer crust or a light toasting, we create a barrier to that moisture destroying our bread. When we toast it too much, we may, however, run into our first axiom. This can be counteracted by a thicker slice of bread, which creates a cushion for the bite pressure.
The third axiom is no different than building a house or a high rise. When we consider a building, each level higher we go, we must make sure it is structurally sound. That means hard and soft textures need to work together to create a cohesive structure, or things will eject from the sandwich. You have probably witnessed this in action if you have ever eaten a burger with lots of sauce and leaf lettuce. If the lettuce was shredded, it would hold in place rather than make a slip and slide.
The Big Bowl
At another time in our history, people used trenchers instead of more refined service items. Yes, your bread was your utensils, bowl, etc. That is great. In the modern world, we see that a deep dish pizza is not a sandwich. Sandwiches are a form of service ware to hold your fillings. Up to a point that is fine. Where it becomes problematic is in trying to make a sandwich with items that don’t belong. Thick salsas, cherry tomatoes, olives, etc. can destroy the structure of a sandwich quickly.
Let’s talk about types of chicken sandwiches to make the point. If you are preparing a chicken salad sandwich with lovely big chunks of chicken in slippery mayo, it will be better in a bowl than between bread. Why? Unless the bread slice is thick enough and soft enough to deform into a bowl, the ingredients will fall out. Let’s change that to pulled chicken in BBQ sauce. If it is piled high and heavily sauced, nothing will hold it. Fry that chicken breast and you will have no problem.
Cheese as Binding Container
When it comes to hot sandwiches, cheese can do you a structural favor. By placing the cheese over all the other ingredients and melting it, you in essence, create a shell around those ingredients. This results in a sandwich that will hold tougher despite some of the axioms we have discussed.
Wrapping Up
We discussed aspects of sandwich making to set up a rubric for more success than failures. This thought experiment hopefully helps others think through how to make tweaks to how they look at sandwiches. We also discussed why they aren’t as simple as two slices of bread and some meat or vegetables. With a bit of thinking, a simple sandwich can be elevated to a one-hand buffet over just a midnight snack.