Meat Sandwich
Where I’m at, there’s no reception. I had to walk six kilometers to the nearest village (Cornellana) to reply to emails. I also recieved messages from Duolingo who was NOT happy about my inactivity. While doing email stuff, I ordered this sandwich. I found Cornellana is famed for, inter alia, the origins of the Campana competition that celebrates the first caught salmon of the season, the world-famous casadiellas (pastries with a filling of wallnuts, hazelnuts, sugar and anise) and this ternera (beef) sandwich.
It comes from a bar called Casino. It is operated by Ana Menedez after her mother founded the business in 1980. The bar has fun chairs, bites, drinks, and pastries (including the casadiellas which it also birthed), and this. The sandwich consisted of meat. But there’s more… kind of. Landing between two pieces of flowery bread are fillets of flour-turned, egg battered and fried steaks. (I can still taste the egg with the meat, and it’s glorious.) There’s no salad, sauce, or buttered bread. But that’s the best part. The bread came from the Casino bakery, 45 meters away. The meat comes from Tineo, which provides great meats. The fillet was as soft as the crispy fried batter that came with it, and after I slowly but decidedly decimated the sandwich, I thought, WOW.
Later, I found out that Jose Andres likes the sandwich too.
The best part about the sandwich is the simplicity. It is tantamount to reliability. In other words, the lack of extra stuff shows how great the thing, by itself, is. It reminds me of how Donald Judd’s works needed to have the right amount of space around them to radiate. The steak had enclosure in bread but nothing more. Judd’s boxes needed a room to breathe, clutter would do no justice.
Omissions can provide a wholeness, (in a sandwich or in the conveyance of priorities in a work like Judd’s). There’s a dialogue that speaks between bread and biting mouths. No festooning lettuce or sauce to contradict its message. It is a decluttered dish which is delicate and delectable. It is a great gig in the fry.
