November List Sandwiches and October Wrapup

It is November 1st, which is the specified day to raise awareness on a number of topics, including such important observances as National Cook For Your Pets Day, National Deep Fried Clams Day, and Color The World Orange Day, which apparently covers a more serious topic than the name would suggest. It is also National Cinnamon Day, and as anyone who’s ever smelled those pine cones that show up in grocery stores during the holidays every year could tell you, just because Pumpkin Spice Season starts earlier every year doesn’t mean it ends earlier. Of course the first day of any new month also means 3 new sandwiches for us here at Sandwich Tribunal to explore. We’ll talk about those sandwiches in a minute. But first, let’s take a look back at what we did in October!

The Tribunal’s List for October included the Pakistani (or Pakistani-American) version of the venerable Club Sandwich, a spicy multi-layer concoction featuring halal meats and no bacon. It’s pretty great anyway! We also tried our hand at the Peruvian Pan con chicharrón, a roll stuffed with crispy fried pork, sweet potato, and salsa criolla. Finally, the Tribunal cooked up some turkey Salvadoran-style to make Panes con Pavo, a Central American grinder featuring salsa-soaked turkey meat in a sub roll with vegetables. Sometimes they call it Pan con Chumpe (Idiot Bread) instead but I felt pretty smart eating it!

All of October’s sandwiches were winners, and it was a great month here at the Tribunal as a result! Now let’s take a look at what we have in store for November:

In November we will check out the Venezuelan Patacón Maracucho / Patacón Zuliano, a type of sandwich served in flattened fried green plantains that hails from Maracaibo in the state of Zulia. What makes it different than the Puerto Rican by way of Chicago jibarito? Hopefully we’ll find out! We’ll also be trying the Torontonian specialty Peameal Bacon, a type of unsmoked back bacon commonly fried up and served in a sandwich with mustard. Maybe we’ll even put some in a pizza with pineapple! Finally, we are assured that the Peanut Butter and Onion sandwich is a real thing that people eat in Walla Walla, Washington, because their onions are so sweet that you can eat one like an apple. I remain skeptical but we’ll check it out regardless.

November should be an interesting month here at the Tribunal. Keep an eye on this space in the days ahead!

Changes to the List

Lots of minor edits to the Wikipedia list in October but the one notable addition is something called a “Glasgow Oyster,” apparently a “Scotch pie” served in a roll, sometimes with gravy. We already have the “Wigan kebab” in our List, but both it and Glasgow Oyster are essentially local names for the more generic “pie barm.” We’ll have to give some thought as to how to represent this best, not making a move just yet.

But we also discovered these items independently, and added them to our list:

• Simit-pogaca, a Macedonian kind of pie-in-a-bun, where a crisp, greasy bit of unfilled burek is served in a sesame seed roll
• British Burrito, wherein a Yorkshire pudding is used as a flatbread to enwrap some roast beef and vegetables

Other News

It would be silly of me not to mention the launch of a new substack–those are subscription-based newsletters, if you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of years, usually with both free content and a paid subscriber-only tier for the good stuff–called “The Sword and the Sandwich.” The nominal subject matter is “white nationalism, whimsy, and everything in between,” but the interesting part (at least to readers of this blog) is that the author, Talia Bracha Levin, will be tackling a sandwich from the Wikipedia List of Sandwiches each week on Friday. You can bet I’ll be reading those pieces!