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."

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)!

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.

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.

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.

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.

But then it wouldn't be a club sandwich!

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....

Its the staple of every hotel and every road warrior out there I think!

Wheres your favourite?

My personal favourites: Kempinski Geneva and Mandarin Oriental Singapore!

Pics:
http://samitravelss.blogspot.co.uk (don't know how to embed..sorry!)

cheers

JB

That looks very nice. I love a good club sandwich but am often reluctant to order one as they are often too dry for my liking.