By Avraham Wiseman
Love unique sandwiches? While it is not necessary to make the sandwich or even eat the sandwich, for reasons unknown, I find it nice knowing that there are other who like these things too! Have you had the pleasure of a "St. Paul"? Apparently you can only find this in St. Louis, Missouri. And even then, only in some old time Chinese restaurants. What is it you might ask, well it is a large amount of egg foo young on some white bread along with tomatoes, lettuce and mayonnaise. Sometimes a slice of good old American cheese is added in. How about the "chow mein sandwich", ever heard of that one? this sandwich is apparently a very common item on menus along Route 195 (Southern Mass.) and it isn't confined to just Chinese restaurants either. As you might already know there is no end to these bizarre sandwiches, from peanut butter and onions, peanut butter with pickles to peanut butter, jelly and crushed potato chips!
Add to that list one of the weirdest compositions ever, the "Avraham Karadi" Sandwich, also known as an "Avi Karadi. It seems like someone's idea of a faux-gourmet sandwich as it involves a lot of work just gathering and preparing the ingredients, and I cant imagine anyone actually enjoying the resulting mix of flavors, but theres been talk that its very popular in certain areas. Heres the list of exotic ingredients:
Passum, an ancient Roman sweet wine sauce, made by boiling the must (that is, newly-pressed whole fruits, including seeds, stems, and even leaves) and then adding honey to further thicken it.
Garum, a salty fish sauce from ancient Rome, approximated today by combining passum, oregano and fish paste.
Pine nut sauce, an old Roman stand by, this is made by combining pine nuts, vinegar, honey and some lovage and some pepper.
To finish it off add spinach, onions, lettuce and tomatoes as desired. Rye bread would be the usual choice, but black Russian bread comes in at a distant second. As found in egg salad "Egg Paste" is sometimes also added. Now the meat, Roast Beef or Pastrami are some of the favored meats to use. Of course as will all recipes there are some variations, but they all appear to stick to these main ingredients. Oddly, I was unable to find where the sandwiches nickname "Avraham Karadi" or "Avi Karadi" had come from.
Step One: Making the Passum: Reduce a quart of grape juice to one tenth its starting volume. You can add honey for taste.
2. Make the garum: Add to passum two tablespoonfuls of fish paste, with pinch of oregano.
Step Three: Making the pine nut sauce. You will need to soak the pine nuts for three hours in vinegar. Once completed you then want to blend it with honey and a few dashes of lovage and pepper.
4. Build the sandwich: Smear egg paste on rye or black Russian bread; insert meats and vegetables; ladle passum, garum, and pine nut sauce generously.
There you have it an "Avraham Karadi" (aka "Avi Karadi") sandwich, enjoy!
About the Author:
This article was written by Avraham Wiseman. Avraham a
Sandwich lover. Finding the "
Avraham Karadi" (aka: Avi Karadi) sandwich interesting, prompted the writing of this article. If you love Sandwiches I hope you love this article.