The sandwich rarely earns much conversation, except at the moment of lunch. Between two slices, it holds happiness, or perhaps a modest slice of uncertain origin, and the story behind it stays unspoken. The sandwich calls to mind schoolyard heat, the sound of a ball striking a wall, and the tang of cured meat. It stands as a compact lunch that might be a mere routine for someone spending Sundays alone, yet it also comes in refined, expensive forms. Sandwiches, not bachelors, often steal the scene. There are Cuban versions that are juicy and melancholy, stubbornly simple and somehow glamorous, even with lettuce and mayonnaise. It mirrors life in miniature. One should always pause to consider what sandwich has marked one’s journey so far.
A sandwich stood upright in the kitchen in the small hours, a cold beer fizzing beside it after a long day. It tasted of the working class, of dreams pursued and duties fulfilled, of value created and scraps left behind. There are two kinds of stubbornness in the world: those who try to save the world and those who smear butter on chorizo. Both are invincible in their own way. The sandwich also folds into the margins around a comic, the bubbles that carry dialogue and thought. There are clever combinations, like avocado with tuna or ham with tomato, and there are dull ones, like a character telling another that something is as white as snow.
Great cooks push the sandwich toward invention, yet the time they spend on novelty is often the time ordinary folks use to craft a juicy, onion-free Spanish omelette and nest it between two slices of crusty bread. After a good digestion with a glass of wine, there is a readiness to revolt, to write a sprawling novel, to swim across the Hudson, or to reach the heights of insolence, power, or a blissful nap that imagination can conjure.
Hazardous as it may seem, Make me a sandwich is a warm, intimate gesture, a sign of complicity, and the deeper bond is that someone is making it for you. A sandwich can be a witty line, a small paralleling of life. The world divides into those who add more ham and those who load up on cheese. Some sandwiches carry a distinctive character and are called bocatas by those who speak the language of tradition. For those who want to evoke memory, a Madeleine moment may be used, but for this reader, a simple pan of bread with chocolate recalled a mother’s voice calling from the balcony.
Give someone a sandwich and the world may turn, at least enough to move the eater forward. A truly content sage does not tease about sandwiches. The simplest bread itself can be a pleonasm, yet in Josep Pla’s stories, characters eat sardine sandwiches as a way to delight readers, not only with prose but with the imagined taste of the prized fish. A mid-morning sandwich can lift the mood, reset the pace of the day, and alter how one perceives the world around. A sandwich is never merely a diminutive; at its best, it should be requested in generous portions.
Sometimes a thought returns to the table, the memory of a kitchen light, the soft clink of a glass, and a lingering scent of toasted bread. The sandwich becomes a small, stubborn emblem: something plain that carries a constellation of feelings, loyalties, and memories. It can anchor a life as it drifts through ordinary hours and grand ambitions alike. In the end, the sandwich invites a reflection on nourishment, companionship, and the small rituals that hold a day together. The lesson is simple, and perhaps hopeful: what fills the bread fills the day, and what fills the memory fills the person who remembers. End of excerpt.