Magnificent Munching

The evil that men do doesn't necessarily live after them.

Consider John Montagu. He was the 18th Century English ne'er-do-well who kept both his wife and mistress at the British Admiralty, sired four illegitimate children by his mistress before she was murdered, brought one of his closest friends to trial on phony charges and led the British navy to its lowest depths of inefficiency and corruption. An appalling record, and yet people everywhere have forgotten his unsavory side and are quite willing to remember only two things: (1.) on August 6, 1762, about 5:00 o'clock in the morning, at a busy gaming table, he ordered a piece of roast beef between two slices of bread; and (2.) his title was the fourth Earl of Sandwich.

As a matter of plain, unvarnished fact, however, and despite the 30 million Americans who daily celebrate his name by devouring hamburgers, hot dogs, double deckers, triple deckers, and other bread-surrounded goodies infinite in variety, Sandwich didn't invent the sandwich at all. The Romans did, a few thousand years before the odious Earl, only they called their creation offula, meaning (freely translated) a snack.

A snack it still is, but a noble one, not to be snubbed because of its casual attire. The common practice of treating the sandwich as a borderline food, a hurry-up half meal to be tossed off between poker deals or during a ten-minute coffee break, is one of the most uncivilized habits of modern civilization. Any man who voluntarily eats the soggy amalgam of celery, mayonnaise and canned tunafish that he finds at most lunch counters is not engaged in the art of eating. He's catering to his bodily needs just as he does in taking milk of magnesia or in showering. Like the sonnet or the stolen kiss, a sandwich may be short, but it should never be merely mechanical.

A fine sandwich is the kind of untiring pleasure that's both familiar and startling. You can plan on a hot roast beef sandwich and know pretty well what to expect. And yet if it's a superb sandwich, it's not merely a slab of meat and bread and brown sauce. It's a thin slice of rosy rare meat cut from the small end of roast prime ribs of beef, tenderly laid on firm bread and then blanketed with natural pan gravy, as hot and brown as the charred rib bones themselves. The gravy flows over the meat and laps and seeps into every pore of the bread. Another time you may see fried oyster sandwich on the menu. There's nothing original about it at all. And yet when you eat the first plump oyster, soft and tangy inside, breaded and brown outside, bathed in thick catsup, and you reach for the beaded glass of cold beer, you feel that you're actually making a dazzling gastronomic discovery. Or think of a gargantuan kosher corned beef sandwich on rye with half-sour dill pickles; or a thick club sandwich with tender white chicken, hickory smoked bacon and sliced tomatoes. These are old flames that flicker anew each time we meet them.

Amateur chefs are, of course, privileged to bust completely loose when they go into the art of sandwich building. The 172 sandwiches served in Oskar Davidsen's restaurant in Copenhagen are only a modest fraction of the number of inventions and variants anybody can create when he moves toward the vicinity of the bread box and the refrigerator. Are there some tiny whitebait to be fried and a jar of ice cold tartar sauce? Have you found some eggs that might be scrambled, light and fluffy, and a small can of anchovies glistening in oil? Will the carcass of the cold roast goose left over from New Year's yield five or six succulent slices from the breast? Did you discover the cold roast pork loin and some biting hot chow-chow? What about the ripe Gouda cheese and the crusty round loaf of Italian bread? All of these and other foods can be used individually or in fantastically endless combinations to make sandwiches – open-faced, closed, squares, triangles, rectangles, rolls or ribbons.

The standard sandwich formula is bread, butter and a filler. In choosing these three ingredients the sandwich-man, like the salad-maker, must be a monomaniac in the matter of using only the finest viands obtainable. The butter must be the best 93 score to be had, preferably sweet butter. If prepared meat like fresh ham or corned beef is used, it must be tender, moist and out of the pot only a few hours. If it's seafood, it must have the salty fragrance of the sea itself still clinging to it. The kind of bread a sandwich chef selects shows, perhaps more than anything else, his skill and authority. That Americans continue to eat packaged soft sliced white bread is certainly the very worst blot on American eating habits. This rubbery rubbish feels and tastes exactly like the waxed paper it's wrapped in. It bends and flops like an old rag doll. When you chew it, it instantly turns to dough. It's enriched and vitaminized to make up for the natural richness and vitamins that were destroyed when the flour was bleached white. It's completely, utterly revolting.

The immense growth in recent years of the sale of French bread and Italian bread, the large use of sour rye rather than sweet rye, and the reappearance of the firm old-fashioned white bread patterned after the type of bread women formerly baked in their homes – these are all good omens for bread and sandwich eating.

If you're expecting a minor mob at your apartment, and you plan to serve cold sandwiches, you should prepare them before the arrival of the first platoon. A sandwich may be eaten quickly, but sandwiches in quantity take considerable time for preparation. When making a large number of sandwiches, be sure your work surface is cleared of all extraneous objects. Arrange the bread in parallel slices for quick spreading and placing of meats. Once they're assembled, cut the sandwiches and place them on a large platter. Cover all tightly with waxed paper or a clean towel dipped in cold water and then wrung dry. This will keep the sandwiches fresh and moist and will prevent the bread from curling. Prepared sandwiches should be stashed away in the refrigerator until serving time.

When buying cooked sliced meats such as tongue, ham or corned beef, ask the clerk to slice the meats very thin. The No. 2 thickness on the slicing machine is a good size. Six thin slices of tongue are always more palatable in a sandwich than three thick slices. Hot meat for sandwiches such as roast beef or steak should naturally be much thicker. Any cold meat or poultry that is sliced beforehand should be tightly wrapped and kept in the refrigerator so that it won't lose its flavor and moisture.

Salad fillings for sandwiches like chicken salad or lobster salad should be made up an hour or two before they are placed in the sandwich. If they are too liquid, the bread will become soggy. Throw off excess liquid, if necessary, or add more chopped solid food if available.

Butter for sandwiches should be kept at room temperature until it is soft enough to spread, but should not be melting. Or, it may be creamed with a heavy knife or spatula in a bowl until it is sufficiently plastic to spread without ripping the bread. Spread butter evenly, without peaks or valleys, to the very end of the crust.

When you cut sandwiches, use a heavy, razor-sharp French knife, or the cutting will be ragged. The crust of square white bread may be cut off, or the bread may be left untrimmed. Naturally, if it's a really prize loaf of bread, the crust is irresistibly good, and should be left on. The crust of rye bread is never cut off.

Don't be ashamed to be a fusspot when presenting your sandwiches. If you're cutting the sandwiches into triangles, rectangles or squares, place the cut side outward on the serving plate. Be sure no filling hangs from the edge of the sandwich. All cut sandwiches should be placed inside the border of the plate.

Don't stint on the garnishes with your sandwiches. If you're serving plain black or green olives, buy the biggest size available, and be sure they're icy cold when served. Small odd garnishes like tiny pickled green tomatoes or olives stuffed with anchovies or spiced honeydew melon rind are nice epicurean conceits. For meat sandwiches you should offer the usual prepared mustard like Gulden's or French's as well as a hot specimen like English mustard made from Coleman's dry mustard or Bahamian mustard or the delightful "Mister Mustard." Be sure the inside of the neck of the mustard jar as well as the outside are wiped clean with a paper towel or napkin.

All the sandwich recipes coming up are designed for a hungry wolf and wolfess with winter appetites:

[recipe_title]Sub sandwich a la Playboy[/recipe_title]

Nobody can dispute the fact that in recent years the submarine sandwich – known in some localities as the sub, the hero, the hoagy, the torpedo or the poor boy – now occupies the very top branch of the sandwich tree. All of the sliced ingredients below should be cut as thin as humanly possible.

1 medium size sliced tomato

1 sliced hard-boiled egg

2 ounces sliced Genoa salami

2 ounces sliced Provolone cheese

2 ounces sliced smoked ham

8 slices cucumber

4 slices Spanish onion

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Magnificent munching

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1/4 cup Italian pepper salad in oil

2 tablespoons minced parsley

Italian crushed (not ground) red pepper

Olive oil

Red wine vinegar

1 loaf long Italian or French bread (about 18 inches)

Cut the bread lengthwise in half with a very sharp knife. Cut the bread crosswise to make two portions. On the bottom half of the sliced bread arrange the tomato and egg. Sprinkle generously with salt. Add the salami, cheese, ham, cucumber and onion. Sprinkle with pepper salad and parsley. Sprinkle lightly with crushed red pepper. Sprinkle generously with olive oil. Sprinkle lightly with vinegar. Place the top of the bread over the sandwich filling. Open your jaws wide like a Neapolitan opening a lunch pail. Provide at least a pint of Chianti per person.

[recipe_title]Hot Beef Hero[/recipe_title]

This is the hot version of the submarine. It consists mainly of sauteed thin beef and green peppers flavored with tomato sauce and oregano.

8 ounces top sirloin of beef

2 tablespoons salad oil

1 large green pepper

2 tablespoons minced onion

1/2 teaspoon minced garlic

1 large fresh tomato

1 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup prepared tomato sauce

1/2 teaspoon oregano

2 long Italian rolls ("torpedoes")

Buy the beef in one piece and then, with a sharp knife, cut it into 1-inch squares about 1/16th of an inch thick. Cut the green pepper into 1-inch squares. Remove the stem end of the tomato and cut the tomato into 1/2-inch thick dice. Heat the oil in a heavy pan. Add the beef, onion, garlic, green pepper, tomato, salt and pepper. Cook over a moderate flame, stirring frequently, until meat loses red color. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer over a slow flame, stirring frequently, about 1/2 hour. Remove lid. If there is any liquid left in pan, continue to cook until the liquid evaporates. Simmer the tomato sauce and the oregano about 3 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce to the beef mixture. Stir well. Cut the rolls lengthwise. Fill with the beef mixture. Pour the tomato sauce over the beef. Close the sandwich. Serve the sandwich with a fork to spear any escaping beef.

[recipe_title]Liederkranz And Ham On Rye[/recipe_title]

Only the name Liederkranz is German. The cheese itself, a famous smoothie among the soft cheeses of the world, is actually an American invention. Combined with ham, it's transformed into magnificent munching.

4 thin slices sour rye bread

Sweet butter

4-ounce package Liederkranz cheese

1 cup shredded lettuce

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 teaspoon French Dijon mustard

4 ounces sliced smoked ham

Combine the lettuce with the mayonnaise and mustard, mixing well. Spread each slice of bread with butter. Divide the lettuce between two slices of bread. Place the ham on top of the lettuce. Spread the Liederkranz cheese on the other two slices of bread. If you like the cheese quite pungent, leave all the rind on. If you prefer a less snappy flavor, remove the end pieces of rind or as much rind as you wish. Place the cheese-spread bread over the ham. Hold the bread firmly and cut each sandwich diagonally into two parts. Pass some crunchy cold dill pickles. Top the proceedings with steins of foamy dark beer.

[recipe_title]Crab Imperial Sandwich[/recipe_title]

Lovers of deviled fresh crabmeat will instantly recognize the filling for this open sandwich baked in a hot oven. If fresh cooked crabmeat is not available in your neighborhood, the frozen or canned product may be used instead. Be sure to examine the crabmeat carefully and remove any trace of bones or tendons.

4 slices firm white bread

Butter

1/2 lb. fresh crabmeat

2 tablespoons finely chopped green pepper

1 canned pimento, diced

3 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 teaspoon dry English mustard

1 teaspoon prepared mustard

1 egg yolk

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons bread crumbs

2 teaspoons salad oil

Paprika

Toast the bread on one side only under a broiler flame. Spread the toasted side with butter. Place the toasted side down on a cookie sheet or shallow baking pan. In a mixing bowl combine the crabmeat, green pepper, pimento, mayonnaise, dry mustard, prepared mustard, salt, pepper and egg yolk. Mix very well. Spread the crabmeat mixture on the un-toasted side of the bread. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on the crabmeat mixture. Sprinkle the salad oil on the breadcrumbs. Sprinkle lightly with paprika. Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes or until the top is lightly browned.

[recipe_title]Steak Sandwich With Onions[/recipe_title]

For the most gratifying results use 1/2-inch thick steaks of prime beef, weighing 8 to 10 ounces each. Boneless sirloin, club steaks or Delmonico steaks are all good.

1 medium size Spanish onion

3 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup dry red wine

2/3 cup strong beef stock or canned beef bouillon

1/8 teaspoon powdered thyme

1 teaspoon cornstarch

Salt, pepper

Brown gravy color

2 individual steaks

4 slices of toast

Cut the onion in half. Then cut crosswise into very thin slices. Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. Add the onion and saute slowly, stirring frequently, until the onion is golden brown. Add the wine. Cook until the wine is reduced by half. Add the beef stock. Bring to a boil. Add the thyme. Dilute the cornstarch in about a tablespoon of cold water and add to the sauce. Reduce flame and simmer 5 minutes. Season to taste. Add enough gravy color to make the sauce medium brown. Slash the edges of the steak in several places to prevent curling. Cook the steaks rare on a hot, lightly greased griddle or in a heavy frying pan. Season with salt and pepper. Place each steak on two pieces of toast. Cut the steaks and toast crosswise so that each piece of toast is cut into thirds. Pour the hot onions over the steak. Fill the rest of the plate with crisp French fried potatoes. Pass a big bowl of tossed green salad with Roquefort cheese dressing. Discourage conversation for at least a quarter of an hour.

playboy's food & drink editor

'I'm beginning to believe Barnum was right."