DiningBuzz! - The Club Sandwich

Can anyone eat a standard club sandwich without incident (i.e. able to get their mouth around it to get a bite; the sandwich doesn't fall apart quickly)?

I'm about to stop ordering them altogether unless there's some trick I'm missing.

Much easier to eat if you order it with just 2 slices of bread instead of the usual 3 slices.

I don't have an issue with what you are describing. Maybe you need to reassess your technique.

Can anyone eat a standard club sandwich without incident (i.e. able to get their mouth around it to get a bite; the sandwich doesn't fall apart quickly)?

I'm about to stop ordering them altogether unless there's some trick I'm missing.

I (pathetically, perhaps) eat them with a knife and fork to avoid an incident like that.

I've never had a problem getting my mouth around a club sandwich, two or three layers of bread. In fact, I could do justice to a Denny's club sandwich right about now

Remove the middle slice of bread (or, as Obscure2K said, order it with only 2 slices).

If it's a decent club, it'll be made with a "real" (i.e., whole) chicken breast and not the press-formed "luncheon" meat crap that's all too often used (Oscar Myer, I'm looking at you).

If it's a decent club...it also won't be overstuffed with iceberg lettuce, where the lettuce is 1/3+ of the sandwich.

Much easier to eat if you order it with just 2 slices of bread instead of the usual 3 slices.That is a great idea! I'll try that next time.

It never occurred to me to take off the middle slice since I thought the double-decker thing was THE main component that made it a Club sandwich. Like ordering a taco without the tortilla.

Always easier if you don't try to eat the toothpick and its tassel with the first bite of every little triangle....

I do away with the bread and order it as a salad. Especially good if it's a lobster club.

A true club sandwich--and I am thinking of memories from childhood--is so good that any considerations of how to approach it are inconsequential. ;)

Just out of curiosity, how do you define a club sandwich? I have seen it defined by the inclusion of bacon. You do mention three slices of bread, which to me are critical.

I define it as having three slices of white bread, toasted, with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, sliced American cheese (optional), and sliced meat of some variety, ham or turkey usually. These ingredients are assembled, then quartered, and then each quarter is held together with a toothpick covered with cellophane (as mentioned by upstream poster). These are then arranged on a small plate with a few potato chips in the center and a pickle slice or two.

These should be served only at an old-fashioned drugstore that has a section set aside for sandwiches, malts, and floats, the drinks handmade, using scooped ice cream. Unfortunately, this type of drugstore no longer exists--SFAIK, that is--so it is impossible to have a truly "authentic" club sandwich. :D

Not that I wouldn't take the other kind--or yours too, should I be seated nearby. :D

I think of a *true club* as sliced turkey on toasted bread with a blt on top. So, yes, 3 pieces of toasted bread, with mayo. No cheese. No chicken. No ham.

If I'm going to eat the bread, it's toasted brioche with the traditional stuff. A nice option would be an open-face sandwich. All the better with sliced avocado.

Ordering it as a salad means more of the good stuff and a nice basket of dinner rolls.

I can't pull the reference out of my brain, but sometime in the last week I heard a conversation on this very topic. It might have been on some TV food show. The gist was complaining about restaurants who transmorgify something and then still call it be the name of the actual dish. Club Sandwich was used as the example, and the complaint was "you can't serve something with two sliced of bread and call it a club sandwich. By definition they have 3 slices."

A true club sandwich--and I am thinking of memories from childhood--is so good that any considerations of how to approach it are inconsequential. ;)

Just out of curiosity, how do you define a club sandwich? I have seen it defined by the inclusion of bacon. You do mention three slices of bread, which to me are critical.

I define it as having three slices of white bread, toasted, with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, sliced American cheese (optional), and sliced meat of some variety, ham or turkey usually. These ingredients are assembled, then quartered, and then each quarter is held together with a toothpick covered with cellophane (as mentioned by upstream poster). These are then arranged on a small plate with a few potato chips in the center and a pickle slice or two.

These should be served only at an old-fashioned drugstore that has a section set aside for sandwiches, malts, and floats, the drinks handmade, using scooped ice cream. Unfortunately, this type of drugstore no longer exists--SFAIK, that is--so it is impossible to have a truly "authentic" club sandwich. :D

Not that I wouldn't take the other kind--or yours too, should I be seated nearby. :D

To argue the point, having once served a term (at age 13, 6 decades ago) behind a traditional drug store soda fountain sandwich board, the "classic" Club is designed as you post, but the ingredients differ slightly.....

From the sandwich's heritage, the dining room and room service menu in "better" hotels:

Sliced roast chicken breast (them lower quarters saved for the kids' dinners on the menu, whilst wings and carcasses went into the stock pot - 1, 2 or even 3[roasted veal bones] gracing the ranges of any "real' restaurant, now sadly prohibited by most health inspectors).

Bacon, lettuce (leaf before iceberg), tomato and mayonnaise (and the bacon must be placed adjacent to the tomato!).

Ham and/or a slice of cheese were early adulterers of the original, and sliced turkey breast more often than not replaced the chicken (until those ghastly compressed preformed, precooked "loaves" of chicken and turkey emerged from giant industrial processing plants, often staffed by workers whose "Green Cards" and SSNs might not survive close inspection).

Sliced pickles, held in great esteem by me, were considered anathema by traditionalists.

To 'count" as a Club, the toothpicks must have tassels/tassles (OE Sp)!

Always easier if you don't try to eat the toothpick and its tassel with the first bite of every little triangle....

. . . These ingredients are assembled, then quartered, and then each quarter is held together with a toothpick covered with cellophane (as mentioned by upstream poster).

To 'count" as a Club, the toothpicks must have tassels/tassles (OE Sp)!

Hey, you were the cited "upstream poster"! "Cellophane tassles," I should have said. Or "brightly colored cellophane tassles," to be exact. ;)

Club sandwiches remind me about my childhood. I went through a phase in the 90s when I’d order club sandwiches any time my father and I went out to dinner at the club and here’s how it would go.

“I’ll have a club sandwich, please, and a Shirley Temple.”

Then I’d eat all the rolls in the roll basket and my dad would say, “How can you eat so much bread?”

I wouldn’t answer him.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, my club sandwich would arrive. I would pick apart all the layers, eat the ham, then push the plate away and say, “Whew! I’m full!”;)

Then I’d eat all the crackers in the cracker basket and my mom and dad would shake their heads and wonder what would one day become of me.

Two dishes which have unfailing traditional connection to dining rooms and lady's (ladys'?) card rooms at US "Country Clubs", the ultimate attraction of affluent suburbia, are the Club Sandwich and "Crab Louie" (more often Shrimp Louie, these days). While you'll find a Club sandwich on the 19th Hole's (a male enclave) menu, "Crab Louie" is an off-the-menu item.

Verbal and literary culinary battles have been fought over the composition of the dressing for "Crab (Shrimp) Louie. Old timers hint that Louie himself included a dash of horseradish, and that "Russian Dressing" won't do!

Nota Bene: The Club Sandwich was born with Saratoga Chips (made in house), and now Potato Chips are a mandatory accompaniment.

I think of a *true club* as sliced turkey on toasted bread with a blt on top. So, yes, 3 pieces of toasted bread, with mayo. No cheese. No chicken. No ham.agreed, Turkey & bacon.
Having once sold meat to delis/restaurants a traditional club is made with turkey & bacon, three layers of toast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_sandwich

agreed, Turkey & bacon.
Having once sold meat to delis/restaurants a traditional club is made with turkey & bacon, three layers of toast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_sandwich

Traditional? Only in the last 40 years in which turkey has become widely available year 'round (and cooked and 'preformed" turkey showed up on your sales sheet). The type of restaurants in which club sandwiches were regular menu items (and recipes from early cookbooks) up until about 1970 called for sliced roast chicken breast. From purveyors, poultry markets and grocery stores, turkey was almost a "specialty" item, stocked in bulk for cafeterias, buffets and similar venues in which T&D was a regular feature.

Traditional?

yes traditional.

Most EVERY restaurant I sold to in the 90s used turkey. I've been ordering clubs since the 70's and never recall anything but turkey. If the restaurant was using chicken, they called it a chicken club.

if your ancient experience dictates otherwise, I can't argue with that.:D

I love seeing the Club Sandwich on menus in Italy. Often they include hard boiled eggs, ham, chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, even sliced olives. Oh, and a boatload of mayo. Thus: caveat emptor when ordering a Club Sandwich outside of the U.S. It is definitely chef's choice,

I love seeing the Club Sandwich on menus in Italy. Often they include hard boiled eggs, ham, chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, even sliced olives. Oh, and a boatload of mayo. Thus: caveat emptor when ordering a Club Sandwich outside of the U.S. It is definitely chef's choice,

I've never seen a club sandwich that didn't have at the very least, tomato, bacon, [some other meat-usually turkey], and mayo by default, and I've eaten a ton of them since the 60s.

Much easier to eat if you order it with just 2 slices of bread instead of the usual 3 slices.

But then it wouldn't be a club sandwich!

yes traditional.

Most EVERY restaurant I sold to in the 90s used turkey. I've been ordering clubs since the 70's and never recall anything but turkey. If the restaurant was using chicken, they called it a chicken club.

if your ancient experience dictates otherwise, I can't argue with that.:D

Certainly, by the 90s, a Club with chicken was rare, and I suspect that even most upscale venues had converted to Turkey by the 70s. I know of only one place that continues to use actual "Roast Chicken" breasts for its Club Sandwich.

Sic transit gloria mundi....