June List Sandwiches and May Wrapup

Hello my sandwich friends, and welcome to June! As usual, on the first of the month we are announcing the three new sandwiches the Tribunal will be covering, but let me first say–May has been brutal. Not the sandwiches so much–they were fine, and I’ll talk about them in a second. But I worked more hours in May than usual, and it’s been unseasonably hot the past few days, and between having my mind on other things–Mother’s Day, a wedding anniversary, yardwork, catching up with my older sons when I can, trying to motivate my youngest to keep with it through the last couple weeks of the school year–it’s been a tiring month. Everything–my work, family, friends, even my sandwiches–has suffered as a result.

There are some good things ahead, things I’m looking forward to, and I can feel that, maybe, my overall outlook is on the upswing. Including a couple of tasty sandwiches, that I will try to do justice to. June could be a great month. It can be. I hope it will be.

But this isn’t the confessional booth of the Real World: Sandwich Edition. This is the Tribunal, and before we can talk about the good things ahead, we need to cover what has gone before. In May we wrote about the British Burrito, perhaps more appropriately known as the Yorkshire Pudding Wrap. It was great, but maybe not the best thing for the hot weather, and I completely whiffed on adding horseradish to it. Oh well. There’s always next winter. Then we tried to approximate the Dutch Broodje Haring, at least the best we could without access to fresh young herring or a plane ticket to Amsterdam. My friends have told me you have to go there and try the herring by itself, that it’s even better than the sandwich, and I believe them. Anybody want to float me a ticket to the Netherlands? Finally, we just came in under the wire with a writeup of the Dutch/Surinamese Broodje Hete Kip, an Indonesian-inspired chicken dish stuffed into a bread roll with various condiments. It also was great, and I hope that we were able to do justice to one or more of May’s sandwiches. I hope to get some feedback from our international contingent soon!

Now, let’s take a look at June’s sandwiches!

In June the Tribunal will be exploring the Italian bruschetta, which comprises an entire category of bread-based antipasto and is reportedly more than simply the tomato and basil salad on toast that we associate with that word in the US. Though that too would be an example of bruschetta. Next we’ll take a look at South African Bunny Chow, another massive chunk of bread like the Kota or Spatlo, this time stuffed with curry and served with salad on the side. Finally, there is the Portuguese style sandwich popular in Massachusetts called Caçoila, a spicy slow-cooked shredded beef or pork roast stuffed into a crusty Portuguese bread roll.

There should be good eating ahead. I look forward to exploring it!

Changes to the List

Wikipedia List

• There is a slap fight going on in the Edits of the Wikipedia List of Sandwiches currently over whether Döner Kebab is of German or Turkish origin.
  • Even the editor arguing for Germany admits that it was a Turk who invented it, and it was built from Turkish ingredients.
  • Just because the Jibarito was invented in Chicago doesn’t mean that we deny its essential Puerto Ricanness. I think you need to consider this Turkish cuisine, but with an asterisk.
• Something called the “Handwich,” an item that was served at the Disney theme parks in Florida during the 80s and 90s, was added to the List.
  • The Handwich was apparently an ice cream cone-shaped bread roll stuffed with fillings.
  • Is this, in actuality, a Notable Sandwich? There are 2 hurdles to clear there: Sandwichness, upon which we at the Tribunal have been notoriously inclusive, and Notability.
    • Sandwichness: we’ve ruled Yes on worse
    • Notability: a long-defunct snack item served by a single corporation decades ago? We haven’t even done a piece on the McRib and you can still get one of those occasionally, and without having to travel to Florida to do it.
  • I have never been to a Disney theme park, and I don’t particularly care about their food offerings, especially this one, which seems gimmicky and dumb. But I’m willing to have my mind changed. Convince me.

Our List

No changes to our List again this month, though we could probably add another month or two worth of things called “Broodje blank” if we chose.