Bigger/Busier: The Out-of-control Sandwich

[Smithy]

Frank Bruni, of the New York Times, finished a recent column with a commentary on sandwiches and how out-of-control they are. The whole discussion is hilarious and difficult to summarize, but here are some choice quotes:

 

Quote

....I started out eating the sandwich with my hands and ended up eating it with a knife and fork. Which nullifies the very point of a sandwich....

...

To make sandwiches more memorable, their merchants often make them bigger or busier or both. Ambition runs roughshod over architecture; the quest for bounty ignores the laws of physics. The result is no longer holdable, no longer portable, a bounty of accouterments, a chaos of condiments, something more suited to admiration than to ingestion and all too likely to end up on your shirt or in your lap.

 

There's a lot more, and it's all good.

 

Cautionary note: the newsletter as a whole is NOT culinary. The first part is political; the second part ("For Love of Sentences") highlights some fine, often hilarious, writing selected from other news articles and opinion columns. The final section on sandwiches is what I'm highlighting here. If you're interested in reading any or all of it, here's a gift link to the essay:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/opinion/rahm-emanuel-2028.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HlA.aTDA.2Rb88WgNeRhy&smid=url-share

 

To read the bit about sandwiches, skip down to the final section, titled "On a Personal Note" and marked by a photo of hamburgers.

[AlaMoi]

the ueber-mongus sandwich is nothing new.

a search on "NYC corned beef / pastrami style sandwich" turns up hundreds of 6-8-10 inch "thick" examples . . . 

[MaryIsobel]

3 hours ago, AlaMoi said:

the ueber-mongus sandwich is nothing new.

a search on "NYC corned beef / pastrami style sandwich" turns up hundreds of 6-8-10 inch "thick" examples . . . 

When I've seen this type of sandwich, I always wonder if one actually eats them like a sandwich or are they dismantled and eaten with a knife and fork?

[Maison Rustique]

When I get those huge sandwiches, I usually take 3/4 of the stuff off, eat the sandwich and have fixings for another 3 sandwiches.

[AlaMoi]

this is about as big as I can handle 'as a sandwich' - 

the Stage Deli in MGM Grand/LV - the menu said the import the pastrami from NYC - 

totally believable - it was delicious