The sandwich is the perfect meal. It's portable, it's filling, and there are endless possibilities.
Sandwiches can be sweet or savory, and served hot or cold. Are you a vegetarian? Great,
have a sandwich. Are you a meat lover? Great, here are more sandwiches. Check out our favorites.
You shouldn't need a recipe for this. It's in the name, folks: bacon, lettuce, and tomato.
The beauty of the perfect BLT is that if you use good B, L, and T, you will have a good
BLT. This sandwich is all about using good quality ingredients. That said, there is a
little margin for error. Basically, the bacon needs to be freshly fried, hot, and crispy,
the lettuce must be anything other than iceberg and have some real bite, and the bread must
be toasted.
The origins of the BLT are a bit opaque. Some believe it's a descendent of English tea-time
sandwiches from the Victorian era, while others believe it's an American variation on the
classic club sandwich, which was popularized in the dining cars of America's bustling railways.
According to Michele Jordan, author of The BLT Cookbook, the first mention of the BLT
can be found in a 1903 issue of Ladies Home Journal magazine. Who knew?
Has a tuna melt ever been spectacular? Probably not, but it's a diner classic for a reason.
Classically open-faced but sometimes served between two slices of bread, this sandwich
combines toasted bread, tuna salad, and melted cheese. While the true origin of this sandwich
is somewhat murky, the tuna melt was allegedly invented at a Woolworth's lunch counter in
1965 in Charleston, South Carolina. According to writer Warren Bobrow, an order for a grilled
cheese sandwich on white bread with a smear of mayo came in. Then,
"Atop the griddle on a shelf, a freshly made tuna salad sits [on] the edge ... and, as
if guided by a hidden hand, the contents tip over, falling on the grilled cheese. Voilà!
The Tuna Melt is born!"
The tuna melt can be a polarizing sandwich. Not everyone is a fan of warmed up tuna salad
and cheese. What's the secret to a perfect tuna melt? Crispy, substantial bread, not
too much tuna salad, and actually melt that cheese, please!
There is nothing quite like the simple pleasure of eating a good grilled cheese sandwich.
What's the secret to making one? First, make sure that you choose a cheese that melts well.
The question as to whether you should use butter or mayonnaise on your grilled cheese
can be pretty polarizing, but whatever spread you decide to use, remember to go low and
slow. The last thing you want is some un-melted cheese in between two slices of burnt bread.
"This is cold, and the cheese isn't hardly melted down!"
"OK."
From whence did such a simple, perfect culinary invention appear? Something similar to today's
notion of a grilled cheese can be traced back to World War II when Navy Cooks prepared "American
cheese filling sandwiches." The term "grilled cheese" didn't appear until the 1960s, though,
preceded by "toasted cheese" or "melted cheese sandwiches."
A bánh mì is a Vietnamese sandwich on a short French baguette. Bánh mì can refer
to a type of short baguette, but when used outside of Vietnam, it's generally referring
to a sandwich that is filled with a fusion of Vietnamese and French flavors. There is
no one, singular bánh mì recipe, but generally, they have pickled vegetables, mayonnaise,
cucumbers, cilantro, Maggi Seasoning Sauce or another seasoning sauce such as soy sauce,
and a meat filling.
The bánh mì came into existence with the French colonization of Vietnam. The French
colonizers grew crops and raised livestock in Vietnam to approximate their European diet,
but they were unable to grow wheat in their new colony. The French shipped bread into
Vietnam, but only the French could afford it. It wasn't until they left that the Vietnamese
were free to create their own invention: the bánh mì we know and love today.
Don't order a reuben on a first date or at a high pressure business lunch — this is
a sandwich that can get pretty messy. Between two slices of rye bread there should be a
lot of pastrami, sauerkraut, pickles, Swiss cheese, and a tangy Russian dressing. You're
probably going to need a toothpick or two to hold it together.
Why does this sandwich have a first name? Who is the original Reuben? One potential
claim of the origin of the sandwich is that it was invented by the owner of a hotel in
Omaha in the 1920s, who named it for one of his regular poker players.
But there's a competing story of the origin of the reuben sandwich that seems a little
less like a fairy tale and more like a believable fact about delis in New York: It was invented
by Arnold Reuben at his sandwich shop on East 58th Street in 1914. Either way, it's delicious.
"Mmmmm!!! Mmmmm! This is incredible, Jer! Mmmm!"
Here's another messy one! The French dip is a hot sandwich consisting of thinly sliced
beef served on a baguette, with a side of beef broth for dipping, hence the name. It's
usually served plain, but it's sometimes topped with Swiss cheese and onions.
Two famed eateries in Los Angeles claim to have invented the French Dip: Cole's and Philippe's.
Cole's feels like a sophisticated speakeasy, whereas Philippe's feels more like an old-school
diner or cafeteria, with the floor covered in sawdust. As for who makes a better French
dip sandwich, that is, of course, a matter of opinion. But as to which hundred-plus-year-old
eatery can claim to have "the original" French dip, it's hard to say.
But if it were Philippe's, the original French dip may have been a pork sandwich. In a 1951
interview with the LA Times, Philippe Mathieu recalled,
"One day a customer saw some gravy in the bottom of a large pan of roast meat. He asked
me if I would mind dipping one side of the French roll in that gravy. I did, and right
away five or six others wanted the same."
A cheesesteak is all about the gooey melted cheese and the thinly-sliced steak, and the
Philly cheesesteak is associated with a place perhaps more than any other sandwich.
To make a cheesesteak, you need thinly sliced sirloin or ribeye. When it comes to the cheese,
the classics are provolone, American cheese, and Cheez Whiz. You can stop there, or you
could add some caramelized onions, mushrooms, hot peppers, or bell peppers, and then put
all of that together on an Italian roll or, as they call it in Philly, a hoagie.
The cheesesteak was invented in 1930 by Pat Oliveri, a hot dog vendor and the namesake
of the legendary establishment Pat's King of Steaks. He decided to add a little variety
to his menu, threw some beef on his grill with some onions, added it to a bun, and an
early version of the cheesesteak — a steak sandwich sans cheese — was born. The cheese
came later, and it became a classic.
The Monte Cristo is a fever dream of a sandwich, neither savory nor sweet. It's a sandwich,
and it's also French toast. In short: it's a ham and cheese sandwich, dipped in an egg
batter, fried in a skillet, and then dusted in powdered sugar. The first incarnation of
the Monte Cristo is the croque monsieur — a.k.a., the original grilled cheese sandwich.
Originally served at a Paris cafe in 1910, the croque monsieur is made up of Gruyere
and ham pressed between two slices of bread and fried in butter. While there's no exact
documentation, the Monte Cristo supposedly entered the scene in the 1960s in Southern
California and exploded in popularity after the Blue Bayou restaurant in Disneyland began
serving it.
If you could put summer in New England on a bun, a lobster roll would be it. The best
lobster rolls are simple, and — apologies to anyone who doesn't live in New England
or the Canadian Maritimes — fresh. Lobster is a delicacy, so just a touch of lemon and
mayonnaise are all you really need to add to the lobster meat to really make it sing.
Lobster rolls are traditionally served in a split-top hotdog bun with chips or fries
on the side.
The first lobster roll was served at Perry's, a Milford, Connecticut restaurant, in 1929,
and really came into its own in Maine, the heart of the lobster fishing industry, in
the 1970s. The early Maine lobster roll was very simple: warm lobster served with butter
on a hotdog bun. Just don't forget that one cardinal rule: fresh.
"Did you just order lobster in a diner?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Because it's a diner."
Even if you love Mexican food, you might not be familiar with the torta, also known as
"the Mexican sandwich." Like the bánh mì, the torta is a culinary remnant of French
colonialism, but unlike the crisp baguettes the French brought to Vietnam, the torta is
served on a soft roll. Like the perfect corn tortilla, the bun of a torta is a soft, subtle
springboard for the assertive flavors inside.
There is no one torta recipe, but there are a few popular varieties, such as one with
carnitas served on a sourdough roll that's spread with refried beans. The whole torta
is then covered in a spicy sauce and topped with raw onions.
The most simple, shelf-stable, kid-friendly sandwich, and perhaps the first sandwich you
ever ate. A triumph of American ingenuity and processed foods, the first step in making
the PB&J possible was the invention of peanut butter in the 1880s. Contrary to popular belief,
Dr. George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter, although he did advance the
peanut as a crop in the American South.
In 1895, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg — of Kellogg's Cereal fame — patented a process for making
peanut butter as a high-protein substitute for people who could not chew solid food.
Some credit a writer, Julia Davis Chandler, with the first mention of a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich in a 1901 issue of the Boston Cooking School Magazine.
Peanut butter became a cheap protein staple during the Great Depression, and during WWII,
mass-produced Welch's grape jelly was included with soldier's rations, popularizing the peanut
butter and jelly sandwich among American GIs who brought their love of the sandwich home
with them after the war. Who can pass up a PB&J sandwich?
"I'm not hungry either."
"You're not hungry either? OK."
Neither the bagel nor lox originates in New York, but the two together with cream cheese,
capers, and onions is a distinctly New York creation. No one knows exactly when it became
a thing, but by the 1950s, some Jewish immigrants would use "bagels and lox" as an insult meaning
too Americanized or assimilated.
The bagels wars have been fought. Some people prefer Montreal bagels, while some people
think that it is literally impossible to get a good bagel outside of New York City. Some
people think that you can find a New York-style bagel pretty much anywhere.
Regardless of the bagel, the real story is that the lox in question isn't even lox. The
Jewish tradition of making lox, or brined fish, began in medieval Germany and was usually
made with herring or carp, today's lox are smoked salmon. Why? It was more widely available
to 19th century immigrants. Bagels and lox was born.
A po'boy is a traditional type of sandwich from Louisiana, served on New Orleans French
bread and filled with oysters, fried shrimp, roast beef, or crab.
The po'boy's origins can be traced back to the sandwich known as the "oyster loaf," and
the sandwich took on the name "poor boy" or the more familiar "po'boy" during the 1929
transit strike. Legend has it that restaurant owners Bennie and Clovis Martin wanted to
serve the strikers free roast beef sandwiches, but they wanted to be able to do it with a
new type of French bread that had no tapered ends and thus, no waste.
You don't have to get dressed up to eat a po'boy, but a po'boy can come "dressed," meaning
with a topping of shredded lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and mayonnaise.
Like the aforementioned Monte Cristo, the Cuban sandwich is a ham and cheese sandwich,
but that's pretty much where the similarities end. In addition to ham and Swiss cheese,
an authentic Cuban sandwich contains roast pork and pickles, with soft-on-the-inside
bread.
Despite its name, the Cuban sandwich actually originated in Ybor City, Florida, at either
the Columbia Restaurant or one of the smaller cafeteria-style eateries in the neighborhood.
The hearty sandwich — back then consisting of pickles, mustard, ham, turkey, salami,
and Swiss cheese — served as lunch for the immigrant Cuban cigar workers, who called
the mixed-meat sandwiches mixto. The English speakers in Ybor City called these sandwiches
"Cubans."
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