What makes a great sandwich?

When I first started working an office way back in the early 1990's we used to walk to a rather wonderful sandwich shop a couple of blocks from the office.

The sandwich shop made wonderful sandwiches that stood like towers and were filled with a myriad of ingredients both mundane and exotic...mind you what we considered exotic back then would be pretty commonplace now (and some things have come and gone again) but still - satay sauce, sprouts, peppered cheese, brie, Swiss cheese, pastrami, smoked salmon, alfalfa sprouts, cranberry sauce all spring to mind.

I often ordered the same sandwich eventually because we are after all creatures of habit - that must be why when I stand at the supermarket deli counter I seem to walk away time and again with ham and turkey when I could have porchetta, mortadella or brawn (OK brawn is disgusting that's why I leave the brawn).

This sandwich shop still exists by the way and they still make great sandwiches but that's not the point of this blog.

What I learnt from one of the women who worked at the shop was how to make a good sandwich and the lesson is all about technique and not at all about content.

Here is the rule - wet-dry-wet- dry-wet.

Here is an example - bread- mayo- ham-mustard-cheddar- butter-bread or bread-wet-dry-wet-dry-wet-bread.

Another - cream cheese-turkey-cranberry-lettuce-cream cheese.

Another - egg salad - lettuce- pickle

Another - avocado -bacon -tomato- lettuce - mayo (or today's lunch which would have been better with sliced tomato than cherry but you get the idea!)