ROVIN’
AND RAVIN’ WITH MIKE
Copyright
© 1999 by Michael Segers, All rights
reserved
It was one of the strangest experiences of my
strange life, mingling with a bunch of teachers and their families. Nothing too
odd about that, since I’ve been hanging out with teachers all my life, but we
were near Plant City, Florida, in March, the weekend after the Strawberry
Festival, so of course, there were strawberries, mountains of the distinctive
"Sweet Charley" berries, as sweet as they are photogenic. And there
were dinosaurs, over a hundred of them, towering above us, but that is another
story, another article.
Nobody was talking about strawberries or
dinosaurs. Instead, all eyes, mouths, and words were focussed on what, to a
gourmet used to the fine dining of Worth County, seemed like rather boring ham
sandwiches. One aficionado even claimed to be able to tell from which sandwich
shop they had come.
Welcome to the Tampa Bay area. It’s a
loosely-knit area of several counties, sprawling fields, congested suburbs
around cities that almost aren’t there. It’s a hodgepodge of ethnicities,
manatees, religious visions and sports franchises, not to mention dinosaurs, the
largest collection of Salvador Dali’s art in the world or the largest
gathering of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in the world. And the inevitable Cuban
sandwich, probably the one icon that holds this crazy quilt of people and places
together.
In and around Tampa, the standard line is that
the Cuban sandwich isn’t Cuban any more than the popular Spanish bean soup (a
hearty stew of garbanzo beans, meats, and seasonings) is Spanish. Both, it is
claimed, were products of cooks in Tampa’s own Ybor City, the old
Spanish-Cuban-Italian neighborhood which now sees its heritage buried under an
onslaught of underage drinkers, overdrinking conventioneers, and Goths, teenaged
rebels whose true rebellion in the heart of the Sunshine State is to affect a
degree of paleness not seen since Elizabeth I. If there were ever an example of
what not to do to a grand old urban neighborhood.…
Back to the sandwiches, however. The Cuban
sandwich is made on Cuban bread, which is baked in long loaves, somewhat like
French bread, wrapped in palmetto leaves for baking. An appropriate length
(about 8-10 inches) of bread is cut off the loaf, and it is then sliced through
the middle, dividing top and bottom. Then, it is piled with sliced baked ham, a
special kind of spicy roast pork, Genoa salami, Swiss cheese, and dill pickle,
graced with mustard, perhaps mayo... and then pressed. A sandwich press is like
a large waffle iron, but with flat plates. The sandwich is brushed with melted
butter on the outsides, then put into the press. A weight is applied, and the
sandwich heats and flattens for a few minutes, melting the cheese.
It is a pretty simple affair, but squabbles erupt
over adding lettuce and tomato (a "cracker" Cuban) or serving it not
pressed. Bacon? Don’t think about it. The mere mention of mayonnaise has been
met with loud cries of "Heresy!" It is certainly the ingredient of
choice to omit when taking Cubans all over the country (to avoid food
poisoning), as folks in the Tampa Bay area do. I heard one woman say that her
son in Seattle would not meet her at the airport if she didn’t have a bag of
Cubans for him.
A man once told me that when he first moved to
the Tampa Bay area, his church was selling Cuban sandwiches as a fund-raiser. He
bought some; when he got home, he took one look at them, and went flying back to
the church to complain that apparently someone had run over his sandwiches with
a truck. He said someone stated more than asked, "You’re not from around
here, are you?" If you find a bit of palmetto leaf in the crusty bread,
just imagine that it is an omen of good luck.
If the Tampa Bay area were ever to secede, it
would probably put a picture of a Cuban sandwich on its flag—once it was
decided whether to have it pressed or not. There is even an occasional art show
named for the Cuban sandwich, and the Cuban sandwich isn’t just for Tampa
anymore. A recent search of the world wide web turned up over four hundred
references, even from such an exotic locale as Atlanta. Two surprises were that
the sandwich is said to be truly a product of Cuba and that none of the recipes
call for salami. (Gee, you’re not from around here, are you?)
I never feel quite as out of place as I do when I
am around a bunch of Tampa Bay natives eating Cuban sandwiches. For the life of
me, it’s just a ham sandwich, but for these folks, it is just a ham sandwich
the way my mother’s split pea soup, which she always had waiting for me when I
came home from college is just a bowl of peas. The quickest way to a man’s
heart, or a woman’s, is indeed through the stomach. It’s just what goes
through the stomach to the heart that is the surprise. Food does more than just
nourish the body. It reminds us who we are, even who we are not. As this country
grows more and more homogenous, with the same television, stores, and
restaurants in every town, my friends from the Tampa Bay area are fortunate to
have a distinctive cuisine to remind them when they are home.
When you read the title, you may have thought
that hot pressed Cuban referred to some ingenious CIA plot against Fidel. But,
armed with your new knowledge about Cuban sandwiches, as you rove and rave
along, no matter what it is that keeps you going—split pea soup, Cuban
sandwiches, or boiled Worth County peanuts—keep your feet dry, your heart full
of noble thoughts, and your expectations high for the guest columnist who will
be raving here next time.