I stopped in to a very small but super quaint backroad country store up the Maine coast a few years back for a simple italian grinder/sub - I ended up leaving speechless and drooling. Turns out the proprietor was an honest to goodness Old Country Italian and it was his joy to make the best, simple food from the best ingredients. I ordered an Italian sub and the dude chuckled and went to work. First he pulled out a sub roll from a basket - the old dude had just baked the long, thin rolls himself that morning! He cut it open and took down a bottle containing fine olive oil that had been soaking in homemade sun dried tomatoes from his garden behind the store - he drizzled the bread with the oil. He then pulled out an armload of the finest cured italian cold cuts Ive ever seen - man, these would be $30. a pound in the store if you could even find these real-deal cured deli meats - prosciutto,, capicola, mortadella, hard dry salami’s, Soppressata, pepperoni - jeebus! He sliced these up very thin and loaded this religious artifact of a sandwich up high! I’m guessing he’s gonna top it off with a little lettuce and call it a day right? He pulls the bottle down again and sliced up these olive oil soaked sun dried tomatoes and layed them over the dried meats - wtf... then he grabbed a little bowl and went out to his garden - he had just picked fresh sweet basil. Lettuce? Are you kidding me? He rinsed off the fresh basil and used this instead of lettuce - then drizzle a touch more tomato-soaked olive oil and wrapped it up for me. Every bit was an orgasm. I stopped therea couple weeks later and brought home 5 of these for my families dinner one night. 6 months later I stopped in again and ran up the steps excited! The old dude had sold the store. Ive never had an Italian sandwich before or since that could compare - the old man ruined me forever. j
Best sandwich ever : plain white bread, the cheaper the better, store brand if available. Dukes Mayo, the more the merrier, sliced fresh tomato (NOT store bought, garden or farmers market are best). If necessary, bacon can be added, but not required. That is all.
Dude - this old Italian man had real cheeses and meats like I’ve never seen - probably had his family sending it to him that make it up in the hills in Italy. Sure wasn’t supermarket material. j
I made one that was pretty good. Toast, peanut butter, honey, crisp bacon, and cinnamon toast crunch. You have to be fairly stoned to enjoy it.