Chris Wilcox asks:

If you had a sandwich named after you at your favorite deli, what ingredients would you want on that sandwich? I was thinking about this question for myself recently (smoked turkey, bacon, tomatoes, jalapenos, and chipotle mayo on potato bread, in case you were wondering) and thought I’d pose this question to a true Sandwich Expert to get his take on the issue.

We tackled this (also from Chris) on the podcast, but here’s the text version of my part of that: I had a sandwich named after me at the deli where I worked, DeBono’s in Rockville Centre, N.Y. And though I’m not sure it’s still on the menu, I imagine if you go in there and ask the right person for a Berg’s Pepper Barge, they’ll make you one — assuming they’ve got pepper ham in stock, which isn’t always a lock.

Berg’s Pepper Barge was the product of some deli-man lunchtime experimentation, with input from my old boss Jay. It was pretty simple: Pepper ham, pepper turkey and DeBono’s fresh mozzarella, with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and optional roasted red peppers. Good stuff. If I were putting it together now I’d probably throw on some hot pickled peppers for a little more spice and crunch, but I think it was a noble effort for a 20-year-old kid creating sandwiches for love.

What sandwich would I want named for me at a deli today? Good question. All my favorite delis growing up were run by Italians or Germans, and it so happen that my mom’s Italian and my dad is half-German (also half-Scottish, but I’d prefer not to incorporate Scottish food on any sandwich named for me). So I’d probably want to experiment with a combination of Italian and German deli staples to come up with some deli sandwich that somehow embodies my deli heritage. So like, I don’t know, something with black forest ham and soppressata? I don’t know. Much like Giuseppe Franco, I don’t want to put my name on an inferior product, so I’d like to experiment first.

As for a non-deli sandwich, I’d be fine with that Chicken-Fried Steak sandwich with bacon, country gravy and jalapenos from the first Sandwich Show being sold as “The Ted Berg” somewhere. Get on it, humanity.

Worth noting: Brett’s working on the second episode of the Sandwich Show now and it should be done within a couple of weeks. If it’s anywhere near as good as the sandwich it produced, it’s going to be outrageously awesome. I can’t stop thinking about the sandwich. I got professional help.

Andrew writes:

What are your thoughts about sandwich thins? These, for example.

Well they’re not Plan A, but I’ve had them and they’re not terrible. I have enjoyed the linked sandwich thins while dieting in the past. Now that I’m married I’m less likely to go on late-night bread-eating binges (grilled cheese, peanut butter and jelly, etc.), so I can keep bread in the house and try to trim down all at the same time. Plus the bread my wife likes isn’t much worse for you than the sandwich thins, so I go with that.

Patrick writes:

Why is it that the Mexi-Melt is given little to no love. It’s the most under appreciated Taco Bell menu item if not fast food menu item of all time. Explain this?

Wait, who doesn’t love the Mexi-Melt? It certainly gets its fair share of respect around these parts, and I know it’s a pretty standard go-to among several of my Taco Bell eating friends. But if it isn’t in other circles, I suspect it might have something to do with cost efficiency. The MexiMelt is generally 20-30 cents more expensive than a soft taco, depending on where you are, and for that you’re getting no more meat or tortilla, less lettuce, fiesta salsa (which I opt out of anyway) and only slightly more cheese.

The difference, obviously, is that the MexiMelt is all wrapped up and melted together, and that’s something I think is worth paying a premium for. But I’ve a distinguishing Taco Bell palate and I’m willing to lay out big cash for choice American-adapted Mexican-inspired fast-food delicacies.

Serious Eats presents a slideshow of the 22 best-looking sandwiches they’ve tried this year. Good to see The Italian Store in Northern Virginia getting some love. They can make a sandwich.

The town of Sandwich is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the invention of the sandwich this weekend, but it’s a sham. For one thing, it sounds like they don’t know for sure what day the fourth Earl of Sandwich first ordered meat between bread, just that it happened in 1762.

For another, the sandwich is not something that could have been invented. The sandwich is transcendent, and John Montagu was just the medium through which it arrived in high-society England and got its name. Even the BBC article quotes a “foodsmith” who says, “Other people were probably eating in that way anyway but they were people who weren’t written about.”

The Wikipedia says an ancient Jewish sage named Hillel the Elder “wrapped meat from the Paschal lamb and bitter herbs between two pieces of old-fashioned soft matzah.” And I suspect that as long as people have had meat and bread, people have been wrapping meat in bread. It’s an instinct that exists in all of us.

All that said, a weekend-long sandwich festival doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. And they’re staging re-enactments — plural — of the moment Montagu ordered his food in bread, which will probably be hilarious.

Yossarian passes along this interesting read about the history of the taco, including Glen Bell’s role in bringing it to the masses. The expert interviewed suspects that the term “taco” comes from Mexican mining communities and is named for a way gunpowder was wrapped to blast holes in rock. So tacos were born of explosives. Somehow this makes me like tacos even more, which I didn’t think possible.

Reader Ben passes along this image that George Takei shared on Facebook, because f- yeah, the future:

Now I don’t know how George Takei gets down or if I’m supposed to take something he shares on his Facebook page as an endorsement of its beliefs, but who makes a sandwich with two slices of bologna? And while there’s something noble about the precise construction of the sandwich in the bottom right corner, who’s really going to take a knife to bologna?

I get that this is more of a math/puzzle thing than a sandwich thing, but it seems as good a segue as any to discuss the proper way to make sandwiches at home, from cold cuts, to take to work (or school, or on a picnic, or wherever you’re going) and eat at lunch.

It starts at the deli or the deli counter of your local supermarket. If you care about the way your sandwich tastes — and lord knows you do — don’t buy pre-sliced, shrink-wrapped lunchmeats. C’mon. You’re better than that.

You’re going to have to feel out the deli man or woman. Ideally, check out how he’s slicing meat for the person before you. If he produces a thin, even cut without being specifically asked, that’s your guy. If it’s someone who gives samples, bonus. Pretend to browse around the deli until he’s available, like, “oh, maybe I need to buy this dusty old jar of olives!” But don’t buy that jar of olives. Also, be careful about looking creepy while you’re sizing up the person slicing the salami.

Speaking of: Salami’s one of the meats you can request sliced thin and know everything’s going to work out OK. With a good slicer and a conscientious deli man, you can get even slices of salami that are damn-near paper-thin. As an added bonus, salami’s really light, so if you get 1/2 pound of thin-sliced salami you’ll end up with a huge stack of it.

It’s the rest of the meats you need to be careful with for special requests. Most places slice meats pretty thin by default, so if you’re too naggy about it and they go overboard, you could wind up with a pile of practically shredded turkey that’s impossible to separate. That’s bad. Also, you don’t need them to slice cheese thin, and if they do so with softer cheeses, you’ll end up with a huge block of it.

Why do you want lunchmeat sliced thin? It’s about surface area and texture. You don’t want lunchmeat bulk, you want lunchmeat flavor. And big thick hunks of sliceable lunchmeats are going to be chewy and weird. If it’s sliced thin and piled appropriately (more on that in a bit), it should be tender and tasty.

I generally make two-meat sandwiches to keep things interesting. What you pick depends on your tastes and your deli’s selection, but I like to combine a bolder lunchmeat flavor with a more mild one. I tend toward Boar’s Head products because they’re reasonably priced and good.

There are a bunch of particulars about which meats go best together, but that’s a feel thing. Use your instincts. Get creative, but be prepared to dial it back a notch if you take it too far. Maybe the new Jerk Turkey goes well with cappy ham, but I doubt it, and I’d want to have some of the plain roast chicken around to pair with the turkey if the ham didn’t work out.

I find I use about 1/4 pound of meat and 2-3 slices of cheese per sandwich, assuming I’m using regular sliced bread. So prepare for that when you buy your meat and cheese and figure out how many days you’ll be taking a sandwich to lunch.

Bread is your call. My general approach to buying bread is to buy whatever whole-wheat bread in the supermarket has the latest sell-by date, though I do play favorites.

Once you’ve got sliced bread, two meats and a cheese, you’re ready to make a sandwich. Oh, and you’ll need some sort of dressing or else that sucker’s going to be way too dry. We keep a pretty impressive array of mustards and hot sauces at the analog TedQuarters. I vary the dressing based on what seems to go best with the meat. Some are obvious: horseradish mustard with roast beef, ranch with Buffalo chicken. Others less so: Inglehoffer Sweet Hot Mustard on… well, basically anything. That’s good stuff.

Now to the actually making the sandwich part:

Spread an even coat of dressing onto one of the two pieces of bread. Onto the dressed side, pile 2-3 slices of your first lunch meat, then 2-3 slices of your second lunchmeat.

IMPORTANT: Do not just stack the meat on the bread flat. It’s a little more time consuming, but you need to pile the slices of meat on one at a time, not folded or rolled but in gentle ribbons. You want your pile of lunchmeat to be as fluffy as possible. Also, maneuver the meat so it covers all the bread, obviously. If it hangs over the sides a little, that’s fine. Sorry, George Takei.

Once your meat is piled on, lay your cheese on top of the meat. No need to ribbon the cheese. If you want to use some sort of vegetable, you can put it on top of the cheese, but I generally find that any vegetable that seems like a good idea on a sandwich at 8 a.m. seems like a bad one by noon when it’s crushed and wilted. Then put the other piece of bread on top. Don’t put dressing on that side of the bread if it’s going directly on the cheese, because you don’t want to dress cheese. I can’t really explain why, but have you ever dipped a piece of cheese in mustard or a mayo-based dip? Would you ever? Does any part of that appeal to you, beyond the curiosity aspect? I suspect no, and so you don’t dress cheese.

Then you have a sandwich. OK bye.

Andrew Vazzano of The ‘Ropolitans tipped me off to this gallery of “The Tastiest, Craziest American Fast Food Exports in the World.” I’ve seen similar lists before, but nearly all of these products are new to me. I suggest clicking it, checking it out, and keeping it open in another tab if you plan to read the rest of this post, in which I decide on spec whether I’d eat the fast-food exports in question.

Pizza Hut’s Dubai Cheese Burger Crown Crust Pizza: I’ve never been to Dubai and I haven’t been to Pizza Hut since an ill-fated and desperate effort to eat something recognizable while in China in 2007, but this seems like the perfect confluence of that city and that restaurant chain. Dubai boasts many of the boldest, most awesome and most ostentatious buildings in the world, and Pizza Hut loves to find new, gimmicky ways to market crappy pizza. The Cheese Burger Crown Crust Pizza combines Dubai’s apparent love for innovative, over-the-top design with Pizza Hut’s love for creating things I find hilarious and would never eat. It’s called a pizza, but it doesn’t even resemble a pizza. Verdict: Would not eat.

Taco Bell India’s Potato and Paneer Burrito: I shy away from items featuring potatoes at domestic Taco Bells, but the addition of a heretofore undiscovered Taco Bell ingredient — paneer — makes this one intriguing. Plus the photo gallery says there’s Nacho Cheese in there as well, which would mean multiple cheeses and something to remind you you’re eating Taco Bell. Verdict: Want. It’s from Taco Bell.

McDonald’s France’s McBaguette: Per the description, it’s “oblong hamburger patties topped with Emmental cheese, arugula, and mustard sauce on a convection oven’d baguette.” That sounds like it’d play pretty much anywhere. Actually, I kind of want to make that. Verdict: Would definitely eat.

McDonald’s Brazil’s Pão de Queijo: The big reveal here is that Brazilians have a “beloved cheesy bread” and I’ve somehow gone 31 years without knowing about it or trying it. Menupages lists 11 places in New York that serve it. Can anyone vouch for any of them? As for the McDonald’s version: It seems hard to screw up cheese-stuffed bread, but harder still to determine why anyone would opt to get it at McDonald’s if it’s popular locally. Verdict: Would eat if it were my only option for pão de queijo, but I can’t figure out why that would ever be the case.

Burger King Canada’s Poutine: Poutine is amazing, but the pão de queijo thing applies here as well: If you’re someplace where poutine is served elsewhere, why are you getting poutine at Burger King? Verdict: If for whatever reason circumstance put me in a Canadian Burger King, certainly.

Domino’s Pizza Malaysia’s Sambal Pizza: If I’m ever in Malaysia and eating at Domino’s, something has gone horribly awry. And I’m not much one for anchovies or onions on pizza, so I’d shy away from this even if that did happen. But the idea of sambal pizza is probably worth pursuing. Verdict: Would not eat.

Denny’s New Zealand’s Roast Lamb: Without knowing much about New Zealand beyond what I’ve learned from the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Flight of the Conchords, I generally assume New Zealand operates on an entirely sheep-based economy. In fact I’m kind of surprised to see the price for this dish in dollars and instead of pounds of fleece, or that it’s not a BYOL arrangement where you show up with however much lamb meat you want to eat at Denny’s and they prepare it for you and serve it up with peas and whatever those orange things are. Also, lamb is pretty delicious, but this looks absolutely disgusting. If that’s the best product shot they could come up with, it’s terrifying to imagine what it’d look like in real life. And I’m pretty sure that gravy is hot fudge. Verdict: No.

KFC Pakistan’s Rice n’ Spice: This is “a biryani dish of rice cooked with spicy chili chicken.” I want that and I can’t imagine it wouldn’t play in domestic KFCs. Also, the gallery says Pakistani KFCs serve “an assortment of deep-fried sandwiches.” Pakistan, huh? Verdict: Want.

McDonald’s Italy’s Mozzarella Burger: There are few foods and combinations of foods to which I object on principle, and one of them is mixing mozzarella and mayonnaise. But that really goes for legit, Italian-deli fresh mozzarella, which I assume they’re not serving at McDonald’s. And a burger on a focaccia bun with basil-tomato mayonnaise and greasy McDonald’s-style mozzarella sounds like a decent novelty item for a limited run in the states. Again, not something I’d eat in Italy, despite what I suggested that one time. Verdict: Would eat once.

I’m going to die someday, and when I die, on my deathbed, I’m probably going to say, “I should have had more cake.”

– My friend Ripps*, circa 2003.

I’ve alluded to this a couple times here and on Twitter, so I should just come with the confession: I’ve been trying to live healthy for the last month and a half.

Due to a variety of factors — both within and beyond my control — I gained a bunch of weight since last summer and I need to lose about 20 pounds. I’ve always carried a few more than I should and I’m cool with that, but my back (and just about everything else) feels better when I’m lighter. Plus, I want to do more of the Sandwich Show, and you really can’t be a fat guy cooking bacon-laden foods on video. You just can’t.

So I’ve worked out six days a week every week since I got back from Spring Training in mid-March and to date I’ve lost… about one pound. It’s not all for naught, since I’m certain I’ve gotten stronger, my endurance is better and I have more energy. But working out makes me hungry and my willpower around delicious food when I’m hungry is terrible.

My wife and I started eating salads for dinner a couple times a week, and salad is total b.s. I’m sorry. It sucks. Salad tastes like obligation, the culinary answer to the homework you need to take care of before you can play video games. Only when you’re having salad for dinner, there are no video games. Even if I have a salad with a pita and a giant piece of grilled chicken on top, I’m hungry like 15 minutes later. No exaggeration, like stomach-growling hungry.

The messed-up thing is it’s almost certainly psychological, because there’s plenty of food there — and carbs and protein and everything — and I like every individual ingredient we use in salads if they’re instead used, well, say, on a sandwich. Lettuce? Adds crunch. Cucumber? Same deal, and tasty too. Carrots? Sweet, crunchy, delicious on a banh mi. I could go on.

I realize, upon reflection, that I’ve lost weight several times before and it has never involved regularly eating salad. I just need to commit to saving half of the sandwich for later and other such nonsense. (Also, please, the Internet, don’t come at me with unsolicited nutrition and exercise advice.)

Notable exception: Taco salad.

*- Ripps, I should say, is now totally jacked. He is also responsible for opening my eyes to the merits of on-base percentage back in the mid-90s.