Ever so often somebody — usually a pesky daughter trying to push bedtime — poses this most irritating of questions: What’s your favourite food in the whole world?
To which I shrug and mumble and shake my head and eventually say “cake”.
But — as I write this column — I suddenly realise there’s something I love quite as much as fresh fruit gateau topped with whipped cream and strawberries. The humble sandwich. Or, in recent times, the not-so-humble sandwich.
There’s just something about the concept — two slices of bread, a smear of butter or olive oil, and one of a trillion fillings — that adds up to gastronomic magic. The sandwich is the only dish I know that has a serious food column devoted to it. The one food that simultaneously manages to rule the rasta, the little takeaways, the chi chi cafes and even the fancy fine-dining restaurants. A two-minute marvel that holds not just egg salad and lettuce, but also memories of picnics, train journeys and quick meals between marathon exam papers.
Indeed, when John Montagu, the fourth earl of Sandwich, asked his servants to fetch him slabs of meat between two slices of bread in the 1700s (legend has it that he was such a compulsive gambler that he could not bear to leave the cards table even for a meal) he could never have imagined that he was inventing Britain’s greatest contribution to gastronomy.
The earl was so incompetent and corrupt that his sneering critics wanted his epitaph to read: “Seldom has any man held so many offices and accomplished so little”.
But I, at least, am willing to forgive him his failures as a statesman and his trespasses as a husband — especially while biting into a caramelised apple, walnut and grilled cheese sandwich. Or a classic bacon lettuce tomato (BLT) laced with garlic mayo. Or a pav stuffed with last night’s leftover — teriyaki chicken or fried fish or aloo bhaji — sliced tomato, rings of onion and dill pickle.
Or even while I’m standing at one of those quaint sandwich bars in London, trying hard to decide: the baguette or the croissant, the finely sliced roast beef or the shrimp salad, the here or the to-go. Or when I’m sighing over the menu of one of those pretty little cafes that have sprung up in Indian metros, which offer all manner of delights from chocolate-marshmallow sandwiches to smoked salmon and dill on seven-grain bread to a juicy Philly cheese steak sandwich. In fact, I send up grateful thanks to that whist-loving Earl when I encounter virtually any sandwich except the cellophane-flavoured creations sold on American trains and the jaw-dislocating three-slices-of-salami-between-a-brick-of-bread doled out by tourist traps in Europe.
Of course, the sandwich has metamorphosed dramatically since the time of that disreputable Earl. Or even since the gluey white bread, butter and boiled chicken quickies of our childhood.
Certainly, those functional offerings were not all that exciting. But I remember cheering every time the gas cylinder got over and — between making desperate calls to Bharat Gas — my mother doled out makeshift meals of stodgy bread, butter, and slices of tomato and cucumber. Over holidays we gobbled Railway Sandwiches: Tangy-chutney-and-tomato affairs that were available at every station. While the big treats were Club Sandwiches — those toasted, three-layered beauties filled with chicken and fried eggs, tomato and lettuce that invariably collapsed into an inelegant mayonnaise-y mess.
Later, while working in an office, we ordered oily omelette sandwiches and the Bombay Sandwich, which was plump with boiled potato, chutney, tomato, cucumber, masalas, carbs and bacteria. These arrived in soggy newspaper parcels. And although the Bombay sandwich is now a standard item on the menus of five-star coffee shops and charming eateries, take a hint. Only buy it if it comes packaged in newspaper or served on a battered metal plate. The ceramic-crockery and napkin crowd simply don’t know how to achieve the same zing.
Nor do they innovate like the roadside sandwich artists, as they stand amidst hillocks of grated beetroot, sliced capsicum, cheese and carrot and heaps of Wibs bread. At these busy stalls, you can sprinkle your sandwich with sev or opt for the vaguely oriental Schezwan sandwich. You can experiment with a Russian toasty that certainly hasn’t made its way to Mumbai via Moscow. Or even the startling cheese Kurkure sandwich.
I haven’t had the guts to try a Kurkure sandwich, but I have had a deep-fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich served with fried bacon and vanilla ice cream. It’s not an experiment I’m planning to repeat anytime soon. But it’s taught me a lesson. Even the versatile sandwich has its limitations.
So when somebody offers you a banana-mayo sandwich or a bhelpuri sandwich, think twice. In your place, I’d reach for the tried and tested tuna sandwich or even the samosa chilli grilled one, instead.
Caramelised apple, grilled cheese & walnut sandwich
Ingredient
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp brown sugar
A dash of cinnamon
1 apple (peeled, cored and sliced)
2 thick slices of cheddar cheese
2 slices of high-quality bread —
preferably white
1 tbsp of walnuts
Method
1 Melt the butter in a non-stick pan.
2 Add the sugar and cinnamon and cook until bubbly.
3 Add the apples and sauté until tender, about five minutes.
4 Pile all the fillings on the bread and grill the sandwich until golden brown on both sides, about two-four minutes per side.
Shabnam Minwalla is a journalist and the author of The Strange Haunting of Model High School and The Shy Supergirl