The roots of the Drunk Sandwich concept lie somewhere in the murk of late college nights. I was living in a Swarthmore student tenement called the Barn, for years the off-campus home of myself and a shifting horde of shiftless, shirtless compatriots. The combination of deadbeat landlord, liberal paint policy, and spacious porch made for a deeply congeni(t)al undergraduate lodging experience. The dust in the basement made for a lot of black snot on days after parties. Lest I paint a picture of complete and utter debauchery, though, a lot of good old-fashioned home cooking was done in the sooty kitchens of that condemned building
Granted, many nights as the festive momentum was winding down and the midnight hunger pangs set in, Renato's pizza would get a late-night call. But then as now being of a fiendish, scheming culinary bent, I would just as often break out the cast iron skillet, the one whose greasiness I so jealously maintained. Out with it would come butter, bread, eggs, chcese, and whatever leftovers and condiments were to hand. Commence to frying of all of the above ingredients, first in sequence and then together. The results, which loosely resembled a spicy grilled cheese that an egg had fallen into, may have been sloppy, but they were hot and deeply gratifying. This until we began pushing the envelope over the proverbial line in the sand, and for a short string of masochistic weekends the Disgusting Sandwich reigned supreme. (The ultimate in disgusting sandwich, for the perverse or the curious: congealed bacon fat, globs of strawberry jam, and ice cubes on whole wheat. Gloriously inedible. Its only contender: canned smoked oysters and pelletized hops on rye.)
Well, living situations and scholastic settings may change, but late night appetites are pretty much a constant. As long as there's at least one ravenous co-conspirator in the house, drunk sandwiches are apt to occur. Indeed, at a recent, almost entirely civilized soiree here at the house--at no point did a gin bucket even make an appearance--I advertised a couple of special-order items: lard fries, turkish coffee, and drunk sandwiches.
But this is grad school, where the qualities of substances is a full time study, and this is Portland, where food carts like Lardo make high-class fatty excess into a fine art. Yes, standards have risen in the late-night snackagawea department, and no spongy whole wheat loaf is fit for the job; no Red Devil sauce, Heinz ketchup or Helman's plasticine glop. There's a new caliber of inebriated meal on the scene. And like everything in this epicurean wonderland, it involves artisan meat, fresh bread, hand-made sauces, naturally fermented pickles, and heirloom produce named for someone's Dutch great aunt. Same old tried-and-true everything-gets-fried technique, though, and same old black cast iron skillet.
I'm never one for recipes per se, but I did sit down to type tonight to mark the recent creation of what may be the ultimate drunk sandwich. Meet the Cubano Borracho. It is, if not the Sandwich king of Southeast Portland, then at the very least the Sandwich for its time and place. Quite simply, it consists of fine ham, tart apples thinly sliced, shaved dill pickle, caramelized onion, dijon mustard, mayonnaise (home-made if possible), black pepper, and an over-easy egg, all meticulously layered on finest not-too-porous bread, the whole thing thoroughly fried in a combination of butter and the bacon grease that was left in the skillet and that you conscientiously pre-fried the ham in. No cheese necessary in this case, though some gruyere wouldn't be altogether amiss. Cut diagonal and served dripping.
Half of one of these is more than enough even for a late night hunger; first thing in the morning, which was perversely when this mongrel was born, a whole one will send you straight back to bed groaning. Such is the dark power of this, the final evolution of the Drunk Sandwich. Enjoy!
Granted, many nights as the festive momentum was winding down and the midnight hunger pangs set in, Renato's pizza would get a late-night call. But then as now being of a fiendish, scheming culinary bent, I would just as often break out the cast iron skillet, the one whose greasiness I so jealously maintained. Out with it would come butter, bread, eggs, chcese, and whatever leftovers and condiments were to hand. Commence to frying of all of the above ingredients, first in sequence and then together. The results, which loosely resembled a spicy grilled cheese that an egg had fallen into, may have been sloppy, but they were hot and deeply gratifying. This until we began pushing the envelope over the proverbial line in the sand, and for a short string of masochistic weekends the Disgusting Sandwich reigned supreme. (The ultimate in disgusting sandwich, for the perverse or the curious: congealed bacon fat, globs of strawberry jam, and ice cubes on whole wheat. Gloriously inedible. Its only contender: canned smoked oysters and pelletized hops on rye.)
Well, living situations and scholastic settings may change, but late night appetites are pretty much a constant. As long as there's at least one ravenous co-conspirator in the house, drunk sandwiches are apt to occur. Indeed, at a recent, almost entirely civilized soiree here at the house--at no point did a gin bucket even make an appearance--I advertised a couple of special-order items: lard fries, turkish coffee, and drunk sandwiches.
But this is grad school, where the qualities of substances is a full time study, and this is Portland, where food carts like Lardo make high-class fatty excess into a fine art. Yes, standards have risen in the late-night snackagawea department, and no spongy whole wheat loaf is fit for the job; no Red Devil sauce, Heinz ketchup or Helman's plasticine glop. There's a new caliber of inebriated meal on the scene. And like everything in this epicurean wonderland, it involves artisan meat, fresh bread, hand-made sauces, naturally fermented pickles, and heirloom produce named for someone's Dutch great aunt. Same old tried-and-true everything-gets-fried technique, though, and same old black cast iron skillet.
I'm never one for recipes per se, but I did sit down to type tonight to mark the recent creation of what may be the ultimate drunk sandwich. Meet the Cubano Borracho. It is, if not the Sandwich king of Southeast Portland, then at the very least the Sandwich for its time and place. Quite simply, it consists of fine ham, tart apples thinly sliced, shaved dill pickle, caramelized onion, dijon mustard, mayonnaise (home-made if possible), black pepper, and an over-easy egg, all meticulously layered on finest not-too-porous bread, the whole thing thoroughly fried in a combination of butter and the bacon grease that was left in the skillet and that you conscientiously pre-fried the ham in. No cheese necessary in this case, though some gruyere wouldn't be altogether amiss. Cut diagonal and served dripping.
Half of one of these is more than enough even for a late night hunger; first thing in the morning, which was perversely when this mongrel was born, a whole one will send you straight back to bed groaning. Such is the dark power of this, the final evolution of the Drunk Sandwich. Enjoy!
Boom.
Beautiful! Let's make a veggie one sometime so that I can partake in this debauchery!
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