[This entry is part of the Sandwich Party - The Quickening. Please see here, here, and here]
My family moved a lot. When I was seven or eight, Portland, Maine became our hometown. One of the first features of the new city to imprint itself upon my mind was the Italian. Noun, not adjective. The Italian is of the family of sandwiches known variously as the sub, hoagie, grinder, etc, but in Portland, Maine, it is simply the Italian.
You should not make this sandwich. There are dozens upon dozens of sketchy little corner stores between here and the beach that do little else but turn out these sandwiches. Pick them up on the way. Don’t run around trying to find all the ingredients yourself. It’s not worth the hassle.
Well, sometimes it is.
Start with soft bread. It should have some give rather than an assertive crust. A baguette is too stiff. One loaf, one sandwich. Twelve inches is good. Fourteen is better. Sixteen? You’re showing off. It must be soft and fresh. It is sliced like a roll, not all the way through, so a V-shaped trough forms to accept the filling. The bread will conform subtly to the shape of the filling on the way to the beach (yes, you are going to the beach, this is an Italian) and the square yard of heavy waxed paper every good Italian is wrapped in will cradle it in the olive oil that slowly leaks out, causing the bread to become moist with it. Extraneous oil is a feature, not a bug. You will wipe it on your belly in the sun at the beach.
Modern menus may offer the “ham Italian” or the “turkey Italian”, and even the “tuna Italian” (please), but by the definition of my boyhood the Italian always contains ham and salami and nothing else, unless by ‘else’ you might occasionally include capicola. The other ingredients are nothing special, but they are all key to the synergy and correctness of the sandwich. They should be deployed in moderation, as the ratio of filling to bread is important. (A popular chain of Italian shops called Amato’s offers what they call a ‘double Italian’, which in doubling all ingredients but bread manages to be half as good as a regular, canonical Italian.)
Cheese: provolone, please, though mild white ‘American’ is not a complete abomination. Now add the vegetables to the declivity. Sliced tomatoes (half-moons, please), green peppers very thinly sliced (longitudinally), planks of dill pickle. Onion in rather sizable dice. Greek olives, halved.
(If you do not like any of these ingredients you can always order an Italian, hold the olives, e.g. but in my opinion you should just spare us all and get a crab roll.)
The sandwich is complete when drizzled with olive oil (preferably from an old, repurposed Gordon’s gin bottle with a bartender’s pour-spout) and liberally dusted with salt and pepper. A small splash of vinegar is permissible, but not in enough quantity to soggy the sandwich nor to compete with the oil, which will baste your sandwich in its waxy slicker on the way to the beach. I did mention the beach, didn’t I?
