In One sandwich to kill you all sharp-tongued badboy Mark Morford shreds the new KFC “sandwich”:
Behold, the KFC Double Down sandwich. It is, if you really want to know, two slabs of fried chicken intersliced with two pieces of bacon, two slabs of cheese, and the Colonel’s “special sauce.” It comes in the form of a sandwich, with the fried chicken where the bread used to be. It’s sort of hilarious. It’s sort of perfect. And then it’ll probably make you vomit.
I really want to set a bucket of these things in front of my Italian neighbors and see how they’d react. Fried chicken in place of bread? Are you kidding me?
I love this sandwich. It is indicative of the New American Way. You let industrial crap food producers “refine” your bread (meaning you make it whiter and less crusty than can ever be imagined by folks that don’t let corporate giants badger scientists for new ways to take the taste out of food) and then when bread is no longer necessary in a sandwich because it’s mostly just air, you remove it entirely and substitute the next thing you’ve refined the taste out of—namely genetically bloated chicken breasts. Since the chicken is so white and tasteless you must bread and fry it and add some bacon. You know the drill, add fat and salt—but not as fat and salt itself but as other things you can hide behind.
(Ok, I admit, it’s nutty. But you got some other ideas why we allow them to do these things?)
Now, when Americans who actually like the Double Down sandwich along with the 27 liter big gulp bucket of sugary slop it’s served with come to Italy, it’s lights out. The bread of the boot has taste, so Italians don’t really have to load up on the meat to make a really tasty sandwich. So maybe a couple thin slices of mortadella on a bit of wood-oven baked focaccia will do just fine.
Look good? Next to it is a classic slice of pizza Napoletana. North and south on a plate. My favorite pizza because of the spikes of flavor emanating from those little green capers that grow from the rock walls of the hardscrabble south. And who doesn’t like anchovies? Ok, so I know most of you hate the little buggers, and wouldn’t let even the smallest morsel touch your honeyed lips, but if you come to Italy you’ll love that the food is often flavored with anchovies and you won’t even know they’re there.
Anyway, everything you see on the plate up there, together, will cost you less than €2.
I’m just trying to show you some cultural sandwich traditions that differ greatly in this global civilization we think we’re in. I’ll throw in the fact that Italians live, on average, several years longer than USians. Just in case you didn’t see the agenda I’ve cleverly hidden from you.
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Our facebook page is the place to discuss Italian life, culture, and 15 million calorie sandwiches, BTW.