January List Sandwiches and December Wrapup
Happy New Month! Yes, a new year is upon us as well, and here’s hoping 2022 is an improvement over the 2020 and 2021 models. But it is also a new month, and as you may know a new month brings us three new sandwiches to investigate here at the Tribunal. We’re going to talk about what those are in a minute, but first, let’s take a look back at December.
December was kind of a huge month at the Tribunal, at least for Jim, who traveled to try not one but two of the month’s sandwiches. There was the trip to Philadelphia to try the Philly Taco, that massive goof of a meal combining a giant slice of Lorenzo’s pizza with a cheesesteak from Jim’s Steaks. It was delicious but it was excessive, and any return trips to Philadelphia will hopefully involve more reasonable portions. Then there was the trip to Iceland to try the Pepperoni Taco, a convenience store snack whose praises have been sung in some corners of the internet. Whether or not the sandwich is worth trying (it is!), Iceland is certainly worth seeing. Finally, we looked at Italy’s Piadina Romagnola, a flatbread stuffed with the delicious cheeses and meats and other delicacies for which Italy is known. It was a good month, a festive month, and a delicious one.
But there’s more to come! So let’s look at January’s sandwiches!
In January we’ll be trying the Depression-era Pickle sandwich, and while we’re at it, maybe a few other pickle sandwich variants? With the right pickle, just about anything is made more delicious, and while bread & butter pickles are not usually my favorite I’ve just come into possession of some extremely good ones so I am ready for this challenge. Next we’ll investigate the pig ear sandwich, brought to our attention by a BBC article a friend shared with us. Will I find anything I like as much as a simple dish of spicy pig ears from a Szechuan restaurant? We’ll see! Finally, it’s a bit off-season but we’re going to take a crack at what Wikipedia is calling the “Pilgrim Sandwich.” Known by some as the MoistMaker, it is that well-loved sandwich made from Thanksgiving leftovers. I know everybody in the world has their own version that is far superior to everyone else’s and I don’t anticipate mine will win anybody over but I’m all for Thanksgiving in January!
It’s going to be a good month. The year, well, that’s yet to be determined but we can always hope.
Changes to the List
The only real notable change to the Wikipedia list that was made in December was that some joker added Knuckle Sandwich. The addition was quickly spotted and removed as vandalism but we got you:
As for our List, we added a few sandwiches to it over the course of December. We added Philadelphia’s roast pork sandwich, famously (and deliciously) served with sautéd broccoli rabe and sharp provolone cheese. We added a type of collard greens sandwich local to a specific area of North Caroline, as excellently covered by our friend Jonathan over at Bounded By Buns. And we added a type of Italian chickpea fritter called Panelle that is sometimes eaten in bread rolls as a sandwich.
The idea behind this site is to explore the nature of sandwichness by eating every sandwich on the Official en.wikipedia.org List of Sandwiches and then to post here about it, preferably with lots of pictures and also words. Sandwich words.
My maternal grandmother, very much Depression era thrifty, used to make two sandwiches that screamed the Depression: One we called the no-good sandwich, because it was literally butter on white bread with sugar sprinkled on it, and what kid could enjoy that? The other was a pickle sandwich, with peanut butter and sweet pickles. Honestly, it’s kind of an inspired combination, you’ve got sweet, sour, salty, and peanut all at once. Haven’t had one in 40 years, because the other kids thought they were weird, but they were just fine, eaten in secret.
Peanut butter and sweet pickles is among my plans, though I’d hoped to use my friend’s homemade bread and butter pickles and they are going fast. I’d better make it happen soon!