I've eaten a lot of sandwiches this year — no surprise there — and while I'll always get excited about my at-home creations and standout work sammies, I'd like to take this moment to recognize all of the other hard-working sandwich makers out there. As the year comes to a close, here are the top 10 sandwiches I've eaten out and about in 2010.
Niman Ranch. Marin Sun Farms. "House cured." The vocabulary of high-end restaurant menus is finding its way between the bread. It's a sustainable sandwich revolution, in which sandwich boards sound bourgier and panini get pricier, but for a good cause.
The classic American sandwich fillings — plasticine cheese, mass-produced cold cuts, and corn syrup condiments like Marshmallow Fluff — are neither sustainable nor particularly healthy. But why force fast-food philosophy on something so simple to make? A new wave of sandwich shops are slowing down, making their own ingredients, and finding local suppliers to construct better-for-you and better tasting sammies.
Given, it's mostly a West Coast phenomenon so far, but the model works everywhere from East Coast delis to mini chain restaurants. Find out where to get your fix.
With boxes of matzoh overlooking loaves of Acme Bread, Saul's Restaurant & Deli in Berkeley is the countercultural deli counter. The Kosher joint recently stopped serving salami until it could find a sustainable supplier, yet its corned beef is worthy of Katz's. I was already planning a trip to Saul's before it surfaced in a recent New York Times story about the sustainable deli movement, but the attention is well-deserved. Check it out below.
Reading David Kessler's The End of Overeating, as I am now, makes me never want to eat food like KFC's Double Down again (though I probably will). Not only are our brains wired to want more sugar, fat, and salt (particularly in combination), but the food industry designs these foods to make them more addictive and literally melt in your mouth so they go down faster.
Take something as innocent as coleslaw: coating cabbage in a high-fat dressing means you don't have to chew it as much, so you get even more calories, more quickly. Many of the indulgent foods I love, sandwiches included, are neither healthy, natural, nor sustainable. This week the New York Times considers this conundrum via the Jewish deli and how it's changing with the times.
The story starts at Saul's Deli in Berkeley, where, as luck would have it, I'm going this weekend.The owners serve cage-free eggs and grass-fed beef and recently took salami off the menu because the deli staple wasn't responsible or sustainable. Before you roll your eyes and say "Oh, Berkeley!" hear me out. Here's more.
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