Sandwich Image Used Under Creative Commons License From Wikipedia
Citizens! Consider Me your Marshal of the Multi-Layer today, here to deliver the single most structurally ambitious sandwich in TFD Nation’s history – eighteen distinct strata of meat, cheese, and produce, built for exactly one purpose: fueling the greatest football party of the year.
Citizens – we are coming up on the Super Bowl so I’ll be posting several of my best football-watching recipes leading up to the Big Game!
Super Bowl’s are one of the very few things uniting most Americans, regardless of their politics, race or creed – the Big Game is one of the truly all-American things out there, and of course the commercials are both epic and legendary! For those who aren’t football fans, they at least can enjoy the various ads in between moments.
My personal favorite ad in Super Bowl history has to be this one – it is considered the most epic ad of all time, and while it only aired once in 1984, most people even today can still recognize it! I speak, of course, of the legendary Apple ad for the first Macintosh!
Full disclosure, I’ve been a Mac User since almost the beginning, with my first Mac being the legendary Mac 128, quickly followed up with the Macintosh II! I’ve been a loyal Mac user ever since.
The heart of any true Super Bowl party remains, of course, the sandwich – mine is transcendent, unmatched in delicious savor, balanced flavors and is not at all hard to make. It’s 18 different layers of goodness (a mystic number in the Jewish faith) and we can all use every bit of good fortune to aid our chosen team in achieving victory!
Feel free to change, subtract or add any ingredient to suit your specific taste. Keep the bread soft, the condiments pungent and the meat of top-quality and you can’t go wrong!
Dagwood Bumstead and the Sandwich That Bears His Name
Blondie, the comic strip that gave the world Dagwood Bumstead, debuted in 1930 and quickly built its running gag around Dagwood’s habit of raiding the refrigerator late at night to construct towering, improbable sandwiches stacked with whatever cold cuts, cheese, and condiments he could find. The strip’s popularity was such that “Dagwood sandwich” entered everyday American English as shorthand for any sandwich built dangerously tall, and the term has stuck around for nearly a century since. Unlike a proper deli hero or a stacked club, a true Dagwood sandwich has no fixed recipe — its entire identity rests on scale and improvisation rather than any particular filling.
That makes it a distinctly American entry in the much larger world of stacked and layered sandwiches. My Maine-Style “Italian” Sandwich occupies similar territory in spirit if not in scale — a regional cold-cut classic I’ve called the apotheosis of the genre right alongside this very Dagwood. For an entirely different structural approach to the same basic idea, My Nordic Party Sandwich ‘Cake’ – Smörgåstårta or Brauðterta takes the layering concept and turns it sideways into a frosted, sliceable centerpiece rather than a single towering stack.
Stacked Sandwiches as Game-Day Architecture
Super Bowl food culture has always rewarded dishes built for a crowd rather than a single plate, and a properly assembled 18-layer sandwich solves that problem better than almost anything else on a game-day table. Pressing and weighting the finished sandwich for an hour before slicing — as called for below — isn’t just for neatness; it lets the layers meld together enough that a clean cross-section slice holds its shape instead of sliding apart on the first bite. It’s the same structural logic that governs My Berlin-Style Döner Kebab Sandwich, where compression and rest time are just as essential to the final result as any single ingredient in the build.
Two of the specialty ingredients in this build deserve a direct sourcing note, since neither is a standard supermarket item: the salami I use is Freybe’s Gypsy Salami, now sold under the name Medley Salami after a rebrand, and the mustard spread on the top layer of bread is Edmond Fallot’s Honey Balsamic Dijon, a French specialty mustard rather than anything you’ll find in a standard condiment aisle.
Enjoy – and may the best team triumph!
Battle on – The Generalissimo
PS – Dagwood is a character from the old “Blondie” comic strip notorious for making (and devouring) insanely large sandwiches.
Layer 10 - 1 large ball Fresh Mozzarella, sliced thin
Layer 11 - Fresh Basil leaves
Layer 12 - Fresh Oregano leaves
Layer 13 - Thinly sliced Smoked Fontina cheese
Layer 14 - Hirshon sweet Balsamic peppers (used Peloponesse roasted red peppers- rinse, soak in marinade of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lots of chopped garlic, LOTS of brown sugar )
Layer 15 - Some thinly sliced Spanish ham
Layer 16 - Some chopped kalamata and green olives
Layer 17 - Some thinly sliced (almost paper thin) cucumber
Start with a Green Onion Slab from Acme Bread (available at Whole Foods) or a focaccia loaf, slice lengthwise.
Soak top layer of bread with pepper marinade, then spread with Edmond Fallon Balsamic Honey Mustard and close sandwich
Wrap tightly in plastic wrap, weight with heavy book(s) for at least 1 hour, pierce with a toothpick for each section of sandwich, then slice carefully.
Prep Time:0 hours
Cook Time:0 hours
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How many slices/how many will this sandwich feed?
Mimi – at least 8-10 hungry people! 😀