Details about pizzas, tacos, and Sandwiches

About Sandwiches, Pizzas, & Tacos

Hamburgers, hot dogs, and sandwiches make up our great movable feast, the foods that can be eaten with the fingers and on the run: at the desk, in the lunchroom, at ball games, and at picnics. While there is no need to decry the fast-food vendors, it's far better to prepare these foods yourself from the highest-quality ingredients. Since portable foods constitute about 1/3 of the American diet, they should be prepared with great care, and attention should be paid to both their taste and their nutritional quality.

Sandwiches

What makes a good sandwich? Good bread, generous filling, contrasting textures, and the mysterious mating of the right filling with the right bread. There was a time when you couldn't get a sandwich in this country on anything but soft white bread: the choice was to have it plain or tasted. Now Americans have not only adopted French, Italian, and Portuguese breads, Greek pitas and Scandinavian flatbreads and ryes, but revived whole-grain breads to the great enrichment of the noonday meal.

What makes a bad sandwich? Dryness, a poor proportion of filling to bread, staleness, incompatible combinations, and wet greens that make everything soggy or untrained tomatoes that sit too long on the bread. Firm, tastily ripe tomatoes are wonderful in sandwiches, adding moisture and goodness.

Unless you must, don't make sandwiches until just before they are to be eaten. When they have to be made in advance for picnics or lunchboxes, wrap each sandwich individually, making an airtight package with plastic wrap or foil. A good idea is to put the lettuce and sliced tomato in a separate plastic bag, to be tucked into the
sandwich just before eating.

Pizzas

And then there is pizza, once Italian, now the quintessential American meal. Far more nutritious than our children imagine, pizza is a worthwhile combination of bread, cheese, and tomatoes. In addition to the familiar garnishes of sausage, anchovy, and mushrooms, pizza can serve as a delicious base for chopped leftover meat and vegetables.
Even people who hate leftovers will eat them spread over a bed of yeasty dough and tomato sauce, covered with a blanket of bubbling mozzarella cheese.

Tacos

Tacos are fried tortillas, the Mexican pancakes made of a flour ground of cooked corn grain, called masa harina. You can make them yourself if you have either a tortilla press or a lot of expeditious: they are tricky. Luckily, many markets now carry tortillas in the frozen food section and some markets even have them fresh, so it isn't necessary to create your own. Tacos are usually made very crisp. They are
folded in half while they are being fried and are then removed, filled, and served.