Ending a Sandwich with the Crust

A movie’s denouement is the first thing we chew over when the credits roll. We judge the whole experience by how the director wraps up their vision. So why would anyone want to end a sandwich with the crust?

Crust is a dirty word. Blisters crust over. Earth’s crust is hard. We pick out crust from our eyes. Grandma threw the crust to the birds. Big Food might be able to sell us on tubular meat scraps, but they’re privy to the divisiveness crust can cause. That’s why they package it up and call it stuffing instead.

My best friend eats his sandwiches, crust-last. He explained that to end with the crust is to come full circle. You have the alpha and omega, the crust being the vehicle for which the book-ends of your meal are represented. This guy finishes a sandwich with the part that children specifically ask you to throw away. We are no longer friends, let alone the best of them. In fact, we haven’t talked in five years. And he’s married to my ex-girlfriend. That’s how much I detest his way of the sandwich.

I’ve thought about this sentiment for a long time, the crust-finale way of doing things. I understand why my former friend would believe this. With repetition, anything can become gospel. A paint chip can start to make sense if you stare at it long enough. Coming from a human person who claimed he’d never broken an egg yolk, I found his methods hard to accept. He was giving meaning to something that didn’t require it, whereas I wanted to eat my sandwiches with fervor and purpose.

As a vegetarian, I don’t eat many sandwiches. The options aren’t as vast in this particular diet. I’d love to tell you I’m a pescatarian, but I’d rather not sound like an asshole. Basically, vegetarians have salty fake meats, veggie bean burgers, Bahn Mi, or egg salad if they’re feeling frisky; not a ton of room for fun sandwiches. Even my PB&Js have devolved to being crafted with tortillas.

When I do have a sandwich, I cherish the event. Pickled onions and spicy mustards are involved, as is the right amount of lip-smacking. It really is the perfect meal; anything involving that much starch is. However, there is one flaw, much greater than the Death Star’s exposed exhaust port: the deplorable crust.

Eating a sandwich with the crust is like getting to hang out with Ryan Reynolds with the stipulation that Mort Sahl’s corpse has to tag along; you’re only going to do it because Ryan will be there.

Now I don’t have a problem with the crust if it’s paired with a nice bite of something else; I’m fully behind hiding worm pills in dog treats. What causes me grief is when I have to eat naked crust alone. But like a bad trip, we go through a snake-fueled nightmare to reach nirvana on the other side. We work hard for fifty-plus years to drive an RV through the Great Plains. We eat the crust first.

I’m not positive if this is how I’ve always approached sandwiches, pizzas, and pies, or if this is something that I picked up later. Considering the culinary conversations I have with my mom are longer than those with my dad, I figure this one must come from the matriarchy.

My mom has quirks when it comes to food. She makes certain that a block of cheese is involved in every meal and saves one final bite of everything on her plate for the end. No matter how many food piles she starts with, there’s a tiny effigy dedicated to each, like Ghosts of Foods Past. She’s always done this to the chagrin of my dad, who now does this, too.

She — like me — eats her sandwiches in a circular motion, spinning them around and biting the crust off steadily as if on a Lazy Susan. This, she says, is her saving the juicy stuff for last.

I remember a meal by the last thing that touched my tongue. If I follow caviar with a nugget of shit, I will base my Yelp review on the nugget of shit. Even the greatest pint of raspberries can be canceled out by a bad berry. They might be my favorite food, but even then I want to eradicate its species. If there’s a side salad to an entree, the salad is choked down first. It should be illegal to end any meal with a leaflet of kale.

In high school, I followed all my lunches with chocolate milk. I had a premonition that one day I wouldn’t be able to consume dairy without repercussions, so I cherished the time that remained with overindulgence. Turkey Tetrazzini Thursday be damned; if a taste were to linger for a few more periods, I’d at least want it to be two-percent chocolate milk.

So again, I pose the question: why stop with the crust? Why that be the taste you remember? Have you met a person who eats the crust and leaves the pie?

But what exactly is crust? I’ve been arbitrarily hounding it for so long that I’ve seemingly accepted crust as a necessary evil. The truth is, crust must exist. There would be no soft center without a tough exterior; nothing can exist without one. Even down to the subatomic level, therein lies a nucleus creating a force to keep an atom together. The crust is the bread’s nucleus. The whole wheat is greater than the sum of its parts.

Despite my choice words for crust, I know that it’s there, in theory, to protect — like cops or pubic hair. If it weren’t there, the layer below would forcibly be volunteered to become the crust, like Party of Five.

When we walk out of a theater, we talk about the climax. But there couldn’t be an end without a beginning. The crust — in this particular mixed-up metaphor — is merely exposition. Without it, we wouldn’t have met the characters or gotten to the good parts, maybe ever. The crust is as important as the rest of the sandwich.

My friend was outspoken, especially about crust. If he didn’t finish with it, he’d believe there’d be bites of sandwich left, causing a longing for more that would never cease. Seeing how our friendship ended, this checks out. Our sandwich, for now, is through; the bitter crust has been consumed. Then again, maybe I’m putting meaning where it doesn’t belong.

A sandwich is a sandwich no matter how you slice it. Even though some may end on a sour note, the rest of the sandwich was probably pretty tasty. That is a mantra I have to repeat.

No matter how much mind mustard you put on your sandwiches, you’re going to eventually look down at your plate and see that there’s nothing left. The flavorful journey is the reward. We should be so lucky to have any sandwich at all.