The Monte Cristo – America’s Answer to French Elegance
Something magical happens when you take a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and transform it into French toast. The Monte Cristo sandwich is a triple-decker egg-dipped ham and cheese sandwich that is pan-fried, serving as a variation of the French croque monsieur. Many believe it was created as a twist on the popular French Croque Monsieur, finding popularity in Southern California restaurants in the 1950’s.
Disneyland is particularly well-known for its version of the Monte Cristo sandwich, a mainstay on the park’s Blue Bayou restaurant menu since 1967. What makes this sandwich extraordinary isn’t just the sweet-savory combination, but the theatrical presentation. Raspberry jam is spread inside the sandwich and also served on the side, because every bite of the Monte Cristo is better dipped in jam. Picture this: The coveted buttery, golden crispy crust giving way to the velvety inside combined with gooey cheese, is sweet, salty, cheesy, buttery, perfection.
The Muffuletta – Sicily Meets New Orleans
Before food trucks revolutionized street food, there was the muffuletta – a portable feast that could feed an entire family. A Sicilian-American creation, the muffuletta is credited to Central Grocery, a deli in New Orleans, Louisiana, requiring two essential elements: the round, flat sesame loaf of the same name, and the antipasti spread that makes up one of the layers. This isn’t just any sandwich – it’s engineering marvel disguised as lunch.
Most po’boys consist of fried shrimp on crusty, hoagie-style bread, while muffuletta sandwiches are made of Italian cold cuts and cheese on flat, sesame-crusted bread. Muffulettas were created by a Sicilian immigrant in the early 1900s by combining many different Italian cold cuts like salami, ham, and mortadella with provolone and olive salad. Traditional muffulettas are served at room temperature, allowing the flavors to meld together, with one sandwich easily feeding multiple people, making it perfect for sharing. The beauty lies in how all those bold flavors – briny olives, sharp cheese, salty meats – create harmony rather than chaos.
The Po’ Boy – Working Class Hero of the South
Sometimes the best stories come from struggle, and the po’ boy’s origin story is pure New Orleans grit. Born during a 1929 streetcar strike when restaurant owners Martin brothers fed striking workers these affordable sandwiches, the “poor boy” has become New Orleans’ signature handheld meal, traditionally featuring fried seafood or roast beef “dressed” with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mayo on French bread. What started as sustenance for striking workers became a culinary icon.
The distinctive New Orleans French bread – crispy outside, fluffy inside – makes this sandwich special, with fried shrimp and oyster varieties becoming particularly popular during the 1960s Gulf Coast tourism boom. The secret isn’t just in the bread though. Debris-style roast beef po’ boys feature meat simmered until falling apart, served with gravy soaking into the bread. It’s comfort food that doesn’t apologize for being indulgent.
The Reuben – Deli Counter Perfection
Few sandwiches spark as much passionate debate about their origins as the Reuben, but nobody argues about its perfection. Corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing grilled between slices of rye bread create the magnificent Reuben. Whether invented in Omaha or New York remains disputed, but its deliciousness is unanimous, with Jewish delicatessens perfecting this sandwich which became an American staple by the 1950s.
Food documentation shows that an early mention of the sandwich appears on a restaurant menu from the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska, where it was invented between 1920 and 1935. According to Saveur and sandwich lore, a waitress at the hotel entered the sandwich into the National Sandwich Idea Contest in 1956, and it won first place. The magic happens when the sandwich hits the grill – the cheese melts into the tangy sauerkraut while the bread develops a buttery crunch. That perfect balance of salty, sour, creamy and crunchy explains why the Reuben remains a menu mainstay.
The Club Sandwich – The Power Lunch Pioneer
Before boardroom meetings and power ties, there was the club sandwich – a statement piece that screamed success. Allegedly born in exclusive gentlemen’s clubs of the late 1800s, the triple-decker club sandwich became the power lunch of the mid-20th century, with three slices of toasted bread creating two layers filled with turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Country clubs and hotel restaurants served these impressive stacks secured with frilly toothpicks and cut into triangles.
The club sandwich was associated with luxury in the 1950s, serving as an ode to the post-World War II era of economic growth and abundance, thanks to its triple-decker style and colorful fillings. So much so that the club sandwich was often served at fancy social clubs, whereas today, you can find different iterations of the sandwich at delis, diners, and fast-food restaurants alike. The architecture of this sandwich – those precise triangular cuts, the strategic toothpick placement – made dining feel like an event.
The BLT – Summer’s Greatest Hit
Some combinations are so perfect they seem inevitable, like the BLT did from the moment someone first paired bacon with fresh tomatoes. Sometimes greatness comes from simplicity, as proven by the humble BLT. Crispy bacon, fresh lettuce, juicy tomato, and mayonnaise on toasted white bread create a symphony of textures and flavors that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Summer gardens produced the tomatoes that made this sandwich truly special.
The BLT gained massive popularity in the post-WWII era when ingredients became more readily available. Diners and home kitchens alike embraced this straightforward creation that somehow manages to hit every perfect note of savory, fresh, and creamy. The genius lies in timing – that brief summer window when tomatoes are at their peak, when that first bite releases a burst of juice that mingles with the smoky bacon fat. It’s a seasonal love affair that never gets old.
French Dip – The Original Sauce Situation
Long before fancy restaurants served everything with aioli on the side, there was the French dip – a sandwich that understood the power of a good dunking sauce. Los Angeles restaurants Philippe’s and Cole’s both claim to have invented this beefy masterpiece in the early 1900s. Thinly sliced roast beef on a French roll comes accompanied by a small bowl of savory au jus for dipping. The sandwich hit peak popularity in the 1960s when casual dining restaurants added it to menus nationwide.
There’s something primal about dipping your food – it engages you, makes you part of the process. Every bite becomes intentional as you control exactly how much of that rich, beefy juice soaks into the crusty bread. It’s interactive dining before that became a trendy concept. The French dip transformed a simple roast beef sandwich into an experience, proving that sometimes the simplest innovations are the most enduring.
The Cubano – Miami’s Melting Pot Marvel
Politics might divide nations, but sandwiches unite them, and the Cuban sandwich is proof of beautiful cultural fusion. Cuban immigrants brought this sandwich to Florida in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Wait, that’s about banh mi – but the point stands about fusion. The Cubano represents the meeting of Spanish, Caribbean, and American influences, pressed into crispy perfection.
What makes the Cubano special isn’t just the combination of roast pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard on Cuban bread – it’s the pressing. That transformation from soft sandwich to crispy, compressed marvel where all the flavors meld and the cheese becomes molten. The pressing creates new textures, concentrates flavors, and turns a good sandwich into something transcendent. It’s alchemy between two hot plates.
Banh Mi – East Meets West on a Crusty Roll
Sometimes the most beautiful things come from collision courses of history, and the banh mi is exhibit A. Born from French colonialism in Vietnam, this sandwich represents resilience, adaptation, and absolutely delicious fusion cuisine. French baguettes meet Vietnamese flavors in what might be the most successful cultural mashup in sandwich history.
Itself a fusion of French and Vietnamese culinary influences, this very popular sandwich shows up in wildly different combinations based loosely on the original – a mix of fresh and pickled veggies and herbs, a smear of mayonnaise, and some sort of meat. It sounds simple, but the flavors are complex, with hot and cold contrasts that harmonize as a sandwich. The cooking itself isn’t complicated; it’s more of an assembly of ingredients, but it does require a willingness to try something new and some thought about the combinations. The genius lies in the balance – creamy mayo, crisp vegetables, savory meat, all cradled in that perfect crusty-soft bread.
Italian Beef – Chicago’s Messy Masterpiece
Chicago doesn’t do anything quietly, and the Italian beef sandwich is no exception. This isn’t polite dining – it’s a full-contact sport where success is measured by how much juice runs down your arms. Born in the Italian-American neighborhoods of Chicago, this sandwich demands respect and probably several napkins.
Thinly sliced seasoned beef is piled high on Italian bread and baptized in its own cooking juices – they call it “wet” for a reason. Then comes the giardiniera, that spicy, pickled vegetable mix that provides the acidic counterpoint to all that rich meat. The bread somehow holds together despite the odds, creating a structural engineering marvel that shouldn’t work but absolutely does. It’s messy, it’s intense, and it’s completely addictive.
The Croque Monsieur – French Sophistication on Bread
The Monte Cristo is believed to be a variation of a French dish called Croque Monsieur, a grilled cheese sandwich consisting of Gruyere cheese and lean ham layered between two slices of crust-less bread, fried in clarified butter and made in a special grilling iron with two metal plates. Croque Monsieur was served for the first time in a Parisian cafe. This isn’t your average grilled cheese – it’s what happens when the French decide to perfect something.
The Croque Monsieur, a French-inspired sandwich, consists of ham, cheese, and béchamel sauce, grilled between slices of bread. While both sandwiches feature ham and cheese, the Croque Monsieur’s rich, creamy sauce sets it apart from the Monte Cristo. The addition of that velvety béchamel sauce elevates this from simple to sublime. It’s comfort food with a culinary degree, proving that the French really do know how to make everything more elegant.
