Videographer Enda O’Dowd and I have been asked to go out into the world and sample some of the many Christmas sandwiches and “review” them.
This is what the writer Joseph Campbell calls a “call to action”, the instigating act of his famous story structure, the “Hero’s Journey”. It’s basically the template of every Hollywood movie.
I know this because Enda has been editing a film and has become obsessed with story structure. He thinks everything needs to follow the “Hero’s Journey”, even footage of me eating sandwiches.
The man has gone quite mad, but I’ve found it’s better to humour him.
RM Block
So we take this “call to action” very seriously, like Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings even though me reviewing food is a travesty because I have the taste buds of a junkyard dog and find almost all food delicious.
In recent years, Christmas sandwiches have started popping up in cafes the day after Halloween. Initially the preserve of people who have their Christmas tree up all year, they’re now something of a norm, and it’s not unknown for people to eat a Christmas sandwich every day like gluttonous Arctic elves. I am very judgmental about this, even though I am about to eat four full Christmas sandwiches for science and journalism. To be honest, I probably shouldn’t have had lunch.
“You don’t need to eat all of the sandwiches,” says Enda.
“I don’t?” I say. “What do you suggest? Some sort of sandwich spittoon?”
“No! You can just have a few bites to get the gist,” says Enda.
“I don’t understand,” I say. (I have never eaten just a few bites of a sandwich in my life; once I bite into a sandwich, I’m all in).
Enda just sighs. He’s not as supportive as Sam in Lord of the Rings.
“I’ll just have to eat four sandwiches,” I say shaking my head sadly.
A quick sidebar now into what exactly constitutes “a Christmas sandwich”. A Christmas sandwich is basically Christmas food between two slices of bread. Most things can be improved by sandwiching them in bread.
Now a Christmas sandwich is not made with any Christmas food. A Christmas sandwich does not include freak yuletide fare, by which I mean Christmas pudding and Christmas cake, foods devised in a time of scarcity in order to preserve summer foods for winter. Nobody really likes Christmas pudding and Christmas cake. They’re just eating it to seem interesting.
Christmas sandwiches are, more typically, made out of turkey, ham, stuffing and gravy and sometimes, because of colonialism, cranberry sauce.
The Christmas sandwich is a phenomenon that should, in the proper course of events happen in the days after Christmas and be made out of leftovers. The nice staff in all of the establishments we visit assure me their food is not made of last year’s leftovers and has, in fact, been newly prepared.
I find this disappointingly less Christmassy despite the health and safety issues.
Bread 41
Because we were late answering the call to action, Enda and I set out on our adventure in the afternoon and not at dawn (the traditional time for quests to start). At our first stop in Bread 41 on Pearse Street they’re all out of their normal Christmas sandwiches. They just have the vegetarian option left. This is the hero’s first obstacle on the road to victory (I am the hero in this scenario).
I overcome the obstacle by looking pathetic and sad. They see in my eyes the disappointed sadness of a slow carnivore and offer to make me a fresh Christmas sandwich. This is very kind of them.
It’s very, very good. How can I describe it? I can’t. I have the palate of an innocent child or a humble pig. Meaty and bready? Is that the type of vocabular food writers use? “It gives me the yum yums?” Is that something a critic might say?
Enda, forever thinking up glitzy gimmicks, suggests a Santa-based grading system.
“I give it five Santas out of five.”
“Are you going to give them all five Santas out of five?”
“No,” I say.
Marks & Spencer
We go up to Marks & Spencer’s cafe on Grafton Street where I order a takeaway Christmas sandwich.
“Five Santas out of five!” I cry.
“You can’t grade it before you eat it!” says Enda.
“Five Santas out of five!” I say after eating it.
Enda sighs.
Pepper Pot Café
Our quest takes us west (I have no idea if it’s really west) so we must traverse Grafton Street and enter the cavernous halls of the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre where we go to the Pepper Pot Café. Oh no! Their famed sandwich is also sold out.
“Another obstacle!” says Enda, rubbing his hands with glee.
We explain what important people we are and they resolve to make us a fresh one. Apparently the real issue is they don’t have any of their delicious gravy.
“We have overcome the obstacle!” says Enda, brandishing his copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
They bring us the sandwich. In fact, they bring us the gravy too, because they found they had some left over.
“I can’t believe I have to eat a third sandwich!” I say.
“You really don’t,” says Enda.
I pretend not to hear him. The sandwich is delicious. So is the gravy.
“A definite five Santas out of five!” I declare.
“This is an insult to food writing,” says Enda.
Bodega
While we wait for our next sandwich in Bodega at the Georges Street Arcade, we discuss some serious journalism we’ve both been reading about geopolitics, and we reminisce about why we got into journalism in the first place.
The sandwich comes. “Right, my fourth sandwich!” I say, slapping my hands together and licking my chops.
“We are not serious people,” says Enda sadly.
(I disagree. I think we are the culinary equivalent of Woodward and Bernstein).
I’ll not tell you how I graded this one but I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with “Jive Fanta”.
Our quest is over. It is time to go back to the Shire.
“Wait!” says Enda. “We need to discuss how you’ve changed as a person over the course of the journey.”
Fecking Joseph Campbell again.
I reflect for a moment. “I was hungry,” I say. “Now I am significantly less hungry.” Enda looks a little disappointed.
Also, that was a lie. I would totally eat a fifth sandwich if I was let.
