by Andrew Post

Created on: May 16, 2008

It starts with the bread. Anyone who doesn't believe that part of making the perfect sandwich must by default involve an ideal choice of bread deserves to spend the rest of their lives eating those awful hot sandwiches they sell in gas stations.

The bread on my favorite sandwich should be wheat: whole wheat, ideally. This provides a good, hardy base flavor and also some texture to munch on, particularly if your favorite sandwich doesn't have that many ingredients. White bread is tasty but it lacks texture, plus it's not as healthy. I don't like rye bread, mainly because the pronounced flavor of those blasted caraway seeds gets in the way of the other flavors. You could go with pumpernickel, but again there are mitigating texture and flavor considerations. Stick with the plain, simple and tasty-but-not-overpowering whole wheat.

The spread, which I consider the most important ingredient after bread, must without question be Miracle Whip. I was brought into the Miracle Whip fold when I was in grade school and have been a fiend for it ever since. Mayonnaise can't hold a candle to it. The Whip o' Miracles has all the necessary qualities of a binding agent that you want to hold your sandwich together, yet it's got that extra tangy kick to round out the combined flavor of the sandwich as a whole. Add Miracle Whip to your sandwich and whatever other combination of meat and vegetables you put in it will automatically be a synergistic one.

My favorite sandwich is simple; I enjoy vegetables on some of my sandwiches but nothing beats the pinnacle of the sandwich world, that savory handful of heaven, the ham 'n' cheese sandwich. Devoted cheese fans such as myself can use any combination of cheeses on their sandwiches, but my preference is Swiss. The deliciously sour flavor of Swiss cheese is a perfect complement to Miracle Whip, you see. The flavors of the cheese and spread merge harmoniously, and then that flavor combines with the basic goodness of the wheat bread, and with all that harmony going on, you can pretty much take your pick of whatever kind of ham it is that you prefer and slap it on. The sandwich will still be dynamite. After over a decade of personal research I've concluded that honey ham is the best choice; the sweetness offsets the cheese and augments the spread, and adds a voice of its own to the mix.

And there you have it! My favorite sandwich: honey ham and Swiss cheese on whole wheat with Miracle Whip. With flavors like this, it doesn't matter how unevenly you cut the bread or how thickly you layer the spread. The flavor combo is just as powerful and scrumptious regardless of the ingredient ratio, as long as you weren't too chintzy with the Miracle Whip. It's a sandwich that isn't quite as fast to make your standard run-of-the-mill PBJ but is always a kick in the taste buds.

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