Alabamians love our barbecue and burgers, as well as anything made with Conecuh Sausage or Chilton County peaches.
We also enjoy a good sandwich – be it a roasted turkey sandwich from Bate’s House of Turkey in Greenville, a Philly cheesesteak from T-Bone’s Authentic Philly Cheesesteaks and Hoagies in Birmingham or a muffuletta panini from Panini Pete’s in Fairhope.
Southern food scholar and “TrueSouth” TV host John T. Edge has a couple of favorite Alabama sandwiches, too, and he features them on his list of “The Perfect Ten” must-try Southern sandwiches in the August-September issue of Garden & Gun magazine.
“Good sandwiches are feats of engineering and economy, which is another way of saying the tomatoes don’t slide out the back end and the tab doesn’t break the bank,” Edge writes.
Two Alabama sandwiches that fit that description, in Edge’s view, are the egg and olive at Trowbridge’s in Florence and the hot ham and cheese at Pizza Bar in Carbon Hill.
His list also includes sandwiches from Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
The hot ham and cheese sandwich at Pizza Bar in Carbon Hill is “a three-napkin indulgence that’s crispy on the outside and gooey in the middle,” John T. Edge writes.(Bob Carlton/bcarlton@al.com)
Of Trowbridge’s egg and olive sandwich, Edge writes, in part: “Cooks here still stir hard-boiled eggs with mayo, chopped green olives and one ingredient (owner) Pam (Trowbridge) keeps secret. Sara Lee sandwich white is their bread of choice, toasted on a machine that looks like a trouser press.”
Meanwhile, the hot ham and cheese sandwiches at Pizza Bar, Edge writes, are “made with house-baked ham that the cooks here shred, then top with Swiss and mayo inside garlic-buttered loaves of Gambino’s French for a three-napkin indulgence that’s crispy on the outside and gooey in the middle.”
Edge’s full musings on both sandwiches — as well as his thoughts on the other eight Southern sandwiches in his “Perfect Ten” — are available in Garden & Gun’s current issue, which is titled “The Ultimate Southern Sandwich Special.”
Extra napkins are not included.
