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Story by KEVIN KITTREDGE
THE ROANOKE TIMES
Where would America be without sandwiches?
No golden arches, no Jimmy Buffett cheeseburger in paradise.
Imagine baseball without the hot dog -- which is just a sandwich with the bread on a hinge.
Who doesn't know that Elvis Presley loved sandwiches made with peanut butter and banana? Who wouldn't recognize a Dagwood Bumstead skyscraper?
There is something quintessentially American about the sandwich. Yes, other countries have their versions. The Italians make those stale-tasting crunchy things that only they can eat. The French make sandwiches that are 90 percent hard bread with a little soggy lettuce and a slice of deli meat tossed in, and sell them for around 12 bucks.
The Mexican idea of a sandwich is the taco.
But here in America, land of plenty, the sandwich is no one-trick pony. It's a whole circus. We have burgers, hot dogs, submarines, clubs, po-boys, pita pockets, Reubens, BLTs. We make sandwiches on wheat, rye, white or pumpernickel bread, on biscuits, bagels and croissants, and we stuff everything from pickles to pork chops inside them.
Nobody does sandwiches like America does sandwiches, and Roanoke is no exception. There are hundreds of kinds of sandwiches available in the Star City -- more than 50 at Macado's alone.
Why do we love them so?
"Convenience," believes Pat Dotson, owner of Pat's Cafe on Shenandoah Avenue. Pat's used to be Lendy's, which used to be a Big Boy franchise. Its menu still runs heavy on the burgers, which are called things like "Buddy Boy" and "Brawny Lad."
"Pick up and eat. Drive and eat. You get your meat and your vegetables and your bread," Dotson explains. "You've got it all in your hand."
It's time we gave sandwiches their due.
This is the Year of the Sandwich, after all. The Wheat Foods Council says so.
Why?
"Because we can," explains Wheat Foods president Judi Adams.
But it turns out there's more to it than that. The year 2002 is actually the 240th anniversary of the year Englishman John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, ordered two pieces of bread with meat between them during a marathon gambling session.
Unimpressed? Okay, truth be told, the Wheat Foods folks are a little chagrined about the beating bread has been taking lately. Seems some people nowadays think it's fattening. They think sandwiches are even worse.
"The grain group really has gotten a bad rap the last few years," Adams says. "Bread is very low in calories. We're trying to tell consumers it's okay to go back to sandwiches."
A little perspective here. It's not like Americans have exactly turned their backs on Big Macs, or on any other sandwich, for that matter. Even a Wheat Foods press release notes that Americans eat 45 billion sandwiches a year.
Here in Roanoke, the sandwich is still one very hot tamale.
Indeed, when the annals of sandwichdom are written, the Star City may occupy a distinguished chapter. Look at Macado's, which began on Church Street in downtown Roanoke in 1978, and soon will number 14 restaurants.
Look at the Brambleton Deli -- which is expanding. Owner Chip Moore says proudly that their popular sandwich, the "B.D. Special," built the deli's new bar.
Moore, a former ITT mechanical designer who is something of a sandwich philosopher, believes the secret to a stellar sandwich lies in the supporting cast.
"You've got the star of the sandwich, which is the meat." Then comes what Moore calls the dressing. "A lot of it's the mix. I don't like a hamburger with a lot of meat on it. To me, it's the proportions."
One other thing: Moore says a good sandwich is often messy. "A really good sandwich needs to run down your hands and wrists." (He later said that's only true sometimes).
Few Roanoke sandwiches seem more likely to do just that than the Rosie Dog, a specialty at Dee Cee's Deli on Orange Avenue. Dee Cee's, with its cinderblock motif (you can't miss it -- it's painted purple) -- has 133 items on its takeout menu, at least half of them sandwiches. Owner Cornell "Dee Cee" Jones offers standard fare like grilled cheese and tuna fish as well as more exotic sandwiches, packed with baby beef liver, crab cakes and pork chops.
But Dee Cee's piece de resistance is the Rosie Dog -- an astonishing concoction composed of 18 ingredients including two hot dogs, ham, turkey, bacon, chili, cheese, hot sauce, onions, relish and slaw.
Jones, who works 16-hour days in his shop, believes the competition is so stiff nowadays that a sandwich won't make it without something extra.
"You've got to juice it up, man," he says. "Because if you don't juice it up, you're not going to sell it."
Dan Molloy, who with partner Terri Dickenson is turning his former International Food Court cubbyhole, Fast Freddy's, into a restaurant success story, says a good sandwich must be made on demand. Molloy now has a restaurant in Salem, Fast Freddy's, and on Brambleton Avenue in Roanoke, Freddy's Sunset Grill.
"You can't make a sandwich and stick it in the refrigerator and pull it out two hours later," he said, because the bread will get soggy. "We don't premake anything. And we buy all our cold cuts in New York."
Macado's President Richard Macher says the secret to making a good sandwich is "just coming up with combinations that taste good. We try to serve it in a festive atmosphere." Macado's has 56 sandwiches on its menu, with inexplicable names like Betty Boop, Julius Caesar and Brooklyn Bridge. Macher says many of the names have historical themes or remember employees.
Despite all the variety on the Macado's menu, the biggest sellers are still chicken and turkey, Macher says. Macado's used to employ more fancy meats, like Italian ham with black pepper on top, but "people didn't care for it as much."
Over at the New Yorker Delicatessen on Williamson Road, the granddaddy of upscale sandwich restaurants in Roanoke, managers Michael Moses and Jamie Thurman say it's all about the quality.
"Quality and quantity and good prices," says Moses.
"We don't pour nothing out of a jug," says Thurman.
They also like to make things big at the New Yorker. Especially the subs.
"If you can eat two," Thurman says, "we'll give you one free."
And that's America.
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triangle) to hear "Dee Cee" tell you how he makes one.
