How to Get the Most out of Your Sub

For Catie,

Subway. It’s the fast food joint you go to when you want to feel less bad about yourself, or you accidentally walked past it and forgot how darn good it smells.

It’s a well known fact that the employees at subway are called ‘sandwich artists’ I am completely agree with the assessment that a sandwich can be a work of art. I won’t go into my sandwich beliefs now- I simply don’t have time.

Although the subway worker is known as the artist, I believe the customer is the conceptual artist, after all you’re the one who has to get the vision across to the artist. What will your sub look like, smell like, feel like, taste like? How can you control the subtleties of your sandwich; the ratio, the order of ingredients etc.?

My personal aim is to get as much on my sub as possible. Sure, the flavours might not mingle as well as they could but at least I know I’m getting value for money and also taking out some of the decisions I have to make. I used to say “I’ll have everything” but as my friend Catie pointed out, this was a rooky mistake. When you ask for 'all the toppings', they only give you a little bit of each, the trick is to ask for a few at a time. “I’ll have tomato and carrot” then you wait til they’ve put the tomato and carrot on, then you say something like “and onions”. Wait. “Black olives….. And green” Wait. “A dozen cucumber slices should be plenty. Wait. ”Oh and LOTS of pickles”. Wait. “Are they jalapenos? Yes I will have some of those”. Wait. “Actually I will have some lettuce” etc.

Another important thing to consider is in what order should you ask for toppings? To be honest I’m undecided, here are a few options that you might want to consider:

• Favourite toppings first- sandwich artistry isn't rocket scientist, but after a while I think they start giving less of each topping.
• Smaller items first- they put a lot of the smaller items on first then if they put fewer larger items on, they will take up more space, if that makes any sense.
• Sandwich order- where items go in relation to each other is of vital importance; in terms of flavour but also texture. E.g don’t go putting tomato next to your bread or it will go soggy. A waterproofing topping like cheese or lettuce is a much better option.

Disclaimer: The sandwich artist will almost definitely hate you if you use this approach.

Disclaimer disclaimer: But it's totally worth it.