A Sandwich Mock Election

It’s election season, and with Election Day approaching, the Internet is full of speculation over how Tuesday is going to go down. The odds makers, poll takers, and polling place leg breakers are all in a tizzy, and for good reason. Deciding who will lead the US for the next 4 years is a pretty big deal, and it should be, but it seems like especially in the last few days before the election, the wildest rumors start flying. Take a look at your social media feed if you have the stomach for the grisly details, or if you’re up for a laugh, depending on your temperament. It’s enough to make your head spin–and that’s the point. By the time this article is published, it will be less than 24 hours before polls open and at that point, you don’t need facts, you just need to scare people.

I don’t want to be scared; I just want to enjoy my life and eat delicious sandwiches. Unfortunately, I’ve been hearing for a while now that no matter which way the election goes, we’ve all been handed a big shit sandwich. As distasteful as I find that metaphor, I can understand it. We all have a big decision to make and we may not feel like we have the tools we need to make that difficult decision. But shit sandwich? Surely we can come up with a better sandwich analogy for this election!

The Idea

My lovely wife recently suggested a timely look into our presidential candidates through the lens of sandwiches. “Why don’t you take me to dinner at Trump Tower,” she asked, “and try a sandwich there? Then you can compare it to, I don’t know, the state sandwich of Arkansas, whatever that is.” I had decided that the quintessential Arkansan sandwich was probably fried bologna, and though I couldn’t find any sandwiches on the dinner menu of Sixteen Chicago at Trump Tower (they run more toward snooty tasting menus), I was willing to give this a go. Then I googled “Presidential candidates.”

Of course there are usually more than just the two major candidates in a presidential election, and the more distasteful the main candidates, the more people are likely to look to third party candidates. And at the time of this writing, we appear to have several available to choose from.

So I’ll take you to dinner at Trump Tower another time, my love (nice try, though, babe!), because this election deserves more serious treatment. I’m not a political writer, though my sole previous foray into the topic was a sober and well-researched essay on money and race in elections. However, I’m here to provide you, the undecided voter, with a solid method for deciding which box to fill on Tuesday. I’m here to give you the Sandwich Tribunal’s 2016 Presidential Mock Sandwich Election.

The Candidates

Republican Candidate: Meatloaf Sandwich

According to this 2013 appearance on Martha Stewart’s TV show, Donald Trump’s favorite sandwich is a meatloaf sandwich. The version Martha made for him used her meatloaf recipe along with an olive tapenade and sourdough bread. I have recreated this sandwich here.

Though meatloaf may seem to be just about as All-American a choice as one could make, it’s important to point out that many cultures around the world, including in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, have their own versions of meatloaf. Also, this appearance on Martha Stewart (wait, don’t those two hate each other?) predated the MAGA caps by a couple of years, so I don’t think he was going for the rah-rah points with this choice. Maybe the guy just really likes meatloaf. I can’t stand the stuff.

Democratic Candidate: Green Olive Burger

According to multiple sources, Hillary Clinton’s favorite sandwich was the green olive burger she ate at the Pickwick in Forest Park, IL, growing up. In fact, in recent years, they’d taken to calling the sandwich the “Hillary Burger.” Sadly the Pickwick closed last year, but this Sun-Times article about the closing gives us a clue as to the recipe.

(Recipe note: take a plain burger and throw sliced green olives on it.)

So who in their right minds would choose a green olive burger when they could have had pastrami on rye? You’ll have to ask the DNC about that one.

Libertarian Candidate: Hatch Green Chile Burger

Of course, Hillary and Donald are both practically open books (emails and tax returns notwithstanding), but the third party candidates are not as well known to us. Nobody has ever asked these people the hard questions, such as “What is your favorite sandwich?” However, Gary Johnson is from New Mexico, and down there in New Mexico they love their Hatch green chile burgers.

Sadly, the invisible hand of the free market has yet to give me any more reasonable facsimile of these burgers than these frozen brisket-chili-and-provolone burgers I bought at Aldi.

Green Party Candidate: Portabello mushroom burger

Jill Stein is originally from Chicago, and given my geographic location I could have chosen any number of local favorites to represent her.

But the green party is the granola party, the patchouli party, the party of vegans and Whole Foods and organic greens, not beef and giardiniera and sassidge. Jill Stein will be represented by a portabello mushroom, marinated in olive oil, salt, and pepper, broiled and served on a brioche bun with avocado oil mayonnaise and organic green leaf lettuce.

Independent Candidate: Egg McMuffin

Who the hell is Evan McMullin? I don’t know and I don’t care. Where did this guy even come from?

I can’t be bothered to think too much about this one. I can’t even remember this guy’s name. What is it again? Hell, I’ll think of something to use for him.

Impressions

As I mentioned, I have never been a fan of meatloaf, but I’ve never made it myself either. My mom’s version is heavy on green pepper, and Martha Stewart’s leaves it out entirely. I don’t much care for cooked green pepper but I do like meatballs, so why wouldn’t I like meatloaf if it’s made right?

I still don’t like meatloaf. I don’t like the sweet ketchup glaze or the crumbly texture. The sandwich was OK, mostly because of the olive tapenade, but I can’t recommend going to the effort to try this at home.

The green olive burger was just that. Green olives and hamburger. I made a damn fine griddled and well-seasoned burger, but there just wasn’t much to this sandwich. Just beef, olives, and bread.

Come to think of it, both the mainstream candidates were very similar in that way. Beef. Olives. Bread. Some differences in texture, sure, but in terms of flavor they were very similar. One might say these two candidates were almost indistinguishable from each other. I’m not sure what to make of that.

The Hatch green chile burger had some nice spice to it, but the ground brisket had a very tightly bound texture, almost like a sausage. Hot and ready to snap. Not the stability I’m looking for in a sandwich candidate.

I did a fantastic job on the portabello burgers–the mushroom was seasoned and cooked perfectly. Unfortunately, the avocado mayonnaise had a bit of sweetness that recalled Miracle Whip, and was not well offset by the bitterness of the organic green lettuce, and whatever deliciousness the mushroom brought was engulfed and overwhelmed by the big brioche bun. Good ideas aren’t worth much if you surround them with a bunch of useless nonsense.

Ah, Egg McMuffin. Good old Egg McMuffin. Never change. Who doesn’t like an Egg McMuffin? You know exactly what you’re going to get. English muffin. Canadian bacon. American cheese. Brightly colored wax paper. They turn them out by the thousands, and every one of them is exactly alike.

The Process

My 16yo son Max played the lead in a hilarious play put on by his high school this weekend called “The Election,” and my 18yo son, my parents, and my sister came back to visit and see the play. With our visitors and the 4 of us at home, that gave me a voting population of 8 for this experiment. I can work with 8. (Unless we end up in a 4-way tie, in which case I will have the sandwiches duel to the death for our amusement)

I made all 5 sandwiches, cut them into pieces, and laid them out on the kitchen table for our voters. I also printed up ballots because I am a giant nerd.

Of course my mom presented a special challenge. She is on a gluten-free diet, and thus doesn’t eat many sandwiches. I had originally thought this wouldn’t be a big deal as my mom is a diehard green olive burger voter. Mom voted green olive burger in the primary, she’s voting green olive burger in the general, and she was going to vote green olive burger in my mock election. But Mom wanted to dip her toes in the Green Party as well for this vote, so I prepared a couple of gluten-free sandwiches for her.

To ensure an accurate count (of our massive 8 votes), we established a procedure that involved myself and one other person both examining each ballot, agreeing on which candidate was selected on that ballot, and tallying the ballot before setting it aside.

We counted. We recounted. We dangled chads.

We had a winner.

The Results

Candidate	Count 1	Count 2
Meatloaf Sandwich
Green olive burger	3	3
Hatch green chile burger	1	1
Portabella burger	2	2
Egg McMuffin	2	2

I feel like people may have been projecting their own issues onto this vote. I have been trying to tell these people that this election is about the candidates, not the issues, but they were not having it. Even with a good number of solid well-balanced people voting with their bellies rather than their consciences, we still ended up electing a green olive burger.

A terrible, awful, green olive burger.

I’d like to feel good about the fact that at least we did not record a single meatloaf sandwich vote, but as that is the sandwich I put the most work into, I don’t actually feel very good about that. I feel kinda crappy about it to be honest.

Who did I vote for? Ballots are secret for a reason, folks. Mind your business.

However, as I told my mom before going into the election, whatever the results, once the votes are in and the election is over, that will be our sandwich, and the whole country should come together and support that sandwich.

Now if we can only get the Meatloaf to concede.