table talk / By Joseph Byrd

The World’s Greatest Sandwich

And a little taste of history

(Oct. 11, 2007) 
It’s still prime tomato season at the Farmers’ Market. Every year, it seems the tomatoes have more variety and get meatier and more flavorful. This time of year, we try to have BLTs every Saturday morning. And this column is about a BLT, sort of.

While I consider myself the second-best sandwich maker on the North Coast, I am not, alas, the complete sandwich connoisseur I would like to be. I have never had banh mi in Saigon, gorditas in Guadalajara, fried-oyster loaf in New Orleans, choripanes in Buenos Aires, souvlaki-pita in Athens or dozens of other wonders.

The World’s Greatest Sandwich. Photo by Bob Doran

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On the other hand, I have had Croque-monsieur in Paris, and the World’s Worst Hamburger in Manchester, England. I’ve had the pulled-pork barbecue sandwich in Charleston, and the Cheesesteak in Philly (yes, with CheezWhiz, and it was terrific). Once, in 1959, at San Francisco’s Beat Generation shrine, The Dante Billiard Parlor, I had a warm Gorgonzola and red onion sandwich on oven-fresh sourdough. And in New York, I’ve feasted on the definitive Sabrett’s hot dog, the reuben sandwich at the original Reuben’s, sausage-and-pepper loaf in Little Italy and my personal ultimate sandwich, half a pound of extra-rare deli roast beef, sliced paper thin, piled onto a Kaiser roll and slathered with too much Russian dressing.

Recently I’ve noticed a growing underground current of food enthusiasts who claim to have discovered “The World’s Greatest Sandwich.” The first hint of this sandwich came to us when we watched the video of Spanglish , a movie that’s gotten terrible reviews but which we rather enjoyed (not liking Adam Sandler as a comic, we were surprised at how good an actor he was). Midway through the movie, Sandler, playing a celebrity chef, comes home from his restaurant and makes himself a sandwich. It seemed clear that this was more than “just a sandwich,” but it was hard to get details in the course of the movie.

But then at the end of the DVD — shazam! — there was a little video extra — “How to Make the World’s Greatest Sandwich featuring Thomas Keller” — showing Sandler being trained, step by step, by the legendary chef. Naturally, I took notes. And then I made it a couple of times, and it wasn’t difficult. I even started requesting it at a couple of our favorite lunch places, and a good line cook has no trouble making it (of course the ingredients, which are what make it cosmic, are not going to be the same quality at a commercial restaurant).

Now, anything with a boast like this is going to get pounded on the web, but surprisingly, while there are many competitors for “World’s Best,” only one or two condescendingly call this “a glorified BLT.” Of course, that’s what it really is. The difference is really the difference between the way Thomas Keller does everything and the way we mortals do it.

Keller is the most influential and forward-looking chef in America. His attention to detail is legend, his creative and whimsical approach to cuisine outrageous, his lack of pretension refreshing. And he never loses sight of the goal of quality: From him, we have learned to wash (yes, with soap) cuts of meat before using them. It is educating to see how much detritus comes away. Keller has often been profiled, but the best book is one in which his story is just one of three: Michael Ruhlman’s The Soul of a Chef — The Journey Toward Perfection . If you are a serious cook, it will thrill you.

The modern sandwich seems to have been invented by the 4th Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu. He was a wealthy and powerful, if perhaps dissolute, British Lord of the Admiralty in the late 18th century, whose financial support of Captain Cook’s explorations was rewarded by the naming of The Sandwich Islands, an archipelago we now call “Hawaii.” Disdaining time spent away from gambling, the Earl called for meat enclosed in bread to be brought to him at the table.

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