“Too few people understand a really good sandwich.”
— James Beard
A sub, short for “submarine sandwich” and piled high with its cold cuts and fixings, looks like submarines, and can easily be confused with hoagie, its brother from another mother. The only differentiating factor between the two is the bread, with sub bread being soft while hoagie’s being a harder roll that makes for a messy and chewier sandwich. Such hard and fast rules drum up feuds between sandwich wizards from all corners of the internet.
Much like its twin sandwich, the hoagie, a sub’s origin is shrouded in mystery. According to one anecdote, the big sandwich was invented by an Italian shopkeeper in New London, CT home to the Navy’s primary submarine base. Originally known as a “grinder” the sandwich eventually became associated with submersible boats and evolved into a “sub”.
Our sub, today, with its pesto chicken and kohlrabi salsa filling, is delicious, creative, and has a cavalier disregard for tradition that may come as a slap in the face of every traditional sandwich extremist. We’d fake penitence but won’t’ be able to keep it up recipe after recipe.
Melding different cultural, traditional, and nontraditional influences to finesse a world of innovation between two slices of bread is how we roll. This colorful sub is perfect for summer because it requires very little time spent in a hot kitchen, and with its fresh and crisp seasonal ingredients, it is satisfying and cooling.
To start, make your own pesto from scratch or buy it from the store and source the raw Kohlrabi from your local stores or farmer’s market. If you are unfamiliar with this vegetable, Kohlrabi (“cabbage turnip” in German) is as common as cabbages and turnips in Eastern Europe, and although it looks like a root vegetable, it is actually an overgrown stem of the plant that thrives above the ground. It tastes like a cross between cucumber and turnips, or cucumber with a spice, and can be eaten alone as a snack with some salt. Have fun making the kohlrabi slaw, and pile it in your sub on top of your cooked chicken to appreciate a really good sandwich.
