OK, so today I had a really good muffaletta at a local place. Actually, an excellent muff, even by NOLA standards, and this was about as far from NOLA as you can get and still be in the contiguous. But it was messy.
I could only eat about half, so I got a clamshell. As I paid, I asked if they would wrap the muff for takeout. They said no–it would be in a box.
That got me thinking about places I know that wrap their sandwiches. The several that came to mind all offer most excellent fare. In fact, for me, there’s been some significant link 'twixt quality and wrapping, be it for bahn mi, Philly cheesesteaks, muffs, or even hamburgers. Beyond containing the mess of any slop, the wrap keeps juice with the sandwich, and usually retains the heat or cold. I love peeling down a paper wrap, or goosing the food partially out of a bag–it just seems more civilized somehow.
I like me a wrapped sammich, if only for the moderately practical reason that one can, upon sitting down, unwrap the item and have a plate/placemat for setting it down, to catch crumbs/drips, and for crumpling up the mess when you’re done.
Occasionally a sandwich will suffer for the wrapping, especially grilled sandwiches where the wrapping can seal in steam and lead to the sad de-crisping of a crunchy grilled exterior or the softening of the cheesy frico edges. In those cases, a clamshell with a couple of vent holes is the preferred method of transport.
Wrapping can also hold a sloppy mess of a sandwich together to eat, or to set down between bites. The aforementioned muffaletta was one of those sandwiches in which the slippery insides tried to escape with every bite. Handed back and forth to Wahine, it quickly started deconstructing, ending as a knife and fork excercise. Papoose-ing it would’ve helped that.
Do you offer any training courses? Because I’ve been practicing this eating thing for over half a century, and am somehow still keeping my dry cleaner in business.
I once took an afternoon river tour out of New Orleans. We brought along lunch, which for the three of us consisted of sandwiches from Verti Marte, IMO one of the world’s great sandwich shops. https://vertimartenola.com/
Thank God they came wrapped. I would defy you, even with your advanced state of eating knowledge, to have managed one of these unwrapped without soiling yourself and the deck.
The wrap on a bagel sandwich and also huge burritos from 2 famous chains are useless – they slice the sandwich/burrito in half THROUGH the wrap after assembly.
For large sloppy sandwiches I’d prefer a box. They become fork & knife food pretty quickly anyway.
