Massachusetts tends to be associated with seafood, and perhaps rightfully so. But very few people sit down to lunch and have some haddock. We're sandwich people.
Each region of Massachusetts has a local favorite as far as sandwiches go. Sometimes, the association is direct, such as Somerville and the Fluffernutter. Sometimes, a sandwich wins by being the last major one we have to use and getting paired with the last part of Massachusetts we haven't hit yet, like the Fried Baloney out in the Berkshires.
No one is saying "Only in Hampden County can you get a really good PB&J sandwich," except for our map... and our map doesn't really even mean it.
We'll explain our reasoning in a moment, but here is the color-coded map. The smaller areas will be explained in the text
Too Small To Label = Fried Bologna (central Berkshires)
Some regions are not won in a landslide. Many regions will be assigned a signature sandwich that may not dominate locally. Steak and Cheese or Tuna Salad may outsell Linguica in Fall River, but the Linguica will still represent disproportionately to the extent that it colors the region.
Offhand, I'd imagine that Italian, Steak & Cheese, Meatball and Chicken Parmesan all sell about the same in most places, and could have been put anywhere on our map. We used about 5% demographics and 95% randomness to decide where stuff should go. That's how we operated in any region without a clear winner, and we tended to default West until we hit a border.
Basically, everything past that 495 snow line you see on TV weather is sort of a Best Of thing... they're out of our coverage area, so eff them. Some blogger in Longmeadow can call us Chowderheads or Swamp Yankees, it all evens out in the end.
The argument about "If we only feel that eastern Massachusetts has signature sandwiches, why not just do an EMASS article?" was an easier one to solve than the arguments we were going to have over leaving out sandwiches like PB+J, Steak & Cheese and so forth. Trust me, this article is over 2 weeks old as I'm editing it, and 11 days of that was pure Argument among the staff.
Let this be more Edutainment for you than an iron-clad basis for culinary law. Here is how we score things.
Cape Cod has the only seafood-based sandwich on the list, a bit of a shocker with towns like Gloucester and New Bedford falling outside of her range.
What's worse is that the Lobster Roll sandwich originated in friggin' Connecticut, and is now most (and perhaps exclusively) associated with Maine.
With all the tourists running through Cape Cod, the Lobster Roll is a good introductory course in Lobster for any landlubber who might need to be eased into things.
This sandwich also owns the immediate coastal areas of the South Coast, and most likely some sections of the South Shore as well. The runner-up Cape Cod Reuben was mentioned, but not much.
It is the signature sandwich for the region of the state that has the town of Sandwich in it, so the who-goes-first argument just ended.
The heavily Portuguese sections of the South Coast not only put a stop to the Irish Riviera, but they also drop a spicy sausage into the face of the turkey sandwich and the lobster roll people.
Even areas on the South Coast without large Portuguese populations live close enough to know the Goodness. Linguica, onions, peppers, sub roll... no condiments needed.
Portuguese of any sort don't mess around in the kitchen. I dated a Cape Verdean girl once, take my word for it...
If you've never dated a Cape Verdean girl... let me tell you what her father told me while she was making me wait before picking her up... "There are two rooms in the house where a Cape Verdean girl excels... one is the kitchen, and have I shown you my new rifle?"
Unrelated, but linguica is the best pizza topping out there, IMHO.
The Gobbler, aka the Thanksgiving Sandwich, the Any-Pilgrim-Name Sandwich, or the Turkey-Cranberry-Stuffing sandwich, is the only real choice for Plymouth County.
The sub shops may sell more Italians or Ham & Cheese subs than this sandwich, but the Thanksgiving Sub is still very representative of the region. It is the only region of the state with multiple turkey-sandwich shops operating in close proximity.
Only the sections of the state assigned to Roast Beef and Lobster Rolls got less argument than the Gobbler got in Plymouth County. The Gobbler even gobbled up some of Bristol and Norfolk Counties.
On the day after Thanksgiving, the Gobbler goes from being Plymouth County's signature sandwich to America's signature sandwich until the resources are exhausted.
DUXBURY BEACH/BUZZARDS BAY... THE BACON SANDWICH
Many people would consider this to be a BLT, but they would be incorrect. Lettuce goes nowhere near a proper bacon sandwich.
No, a man considering a bacon sandwich wants nothing to do with lettuce. Replace it with cheese, because why go half way when you try to clog an artery?
I listed Duxbury Beach and (the village of) Buzzards Bay as the region for the Bacon Sandwich simply because I grew up in one and presently live in the other. In an episode of mobility unique to this list, the Mecca of Bacon Sandwiches is found wherever you find the author of this article.
Many people consider me to be a sort of Bacon God, mostly due to my heroic consumption of the Death Meat. I actually forced a Cape-area hotel into changing their breakfast buffet menu, just to allow them to stay afloat financially.
Bacon sandwiches are considered to be one of the best hangover cures. They are also the only food you can eat that is somehow better if you smoke during your meal. The tobacco adds nothing to the meal, other than setting the tone for a Live Now sort of dietary style.
SHARON... PASTRAMI SANDWICH
Sharon has a sizable Russian population, and some of them are the sort who eat together at the Carnegie Deli with David Lee Roth and Arthur Fonzarelli.
Hot Pastrami is a heroic meal, not many eat it daily, and it is more of a treat than a sub shop top-seller. It is very fortunate to be on this list.
The ranking of this sandwich in this town is our nod of the head in thanks to all of the delicatessen people of the past. The Greeks and Italians run the sandwich biz these days, but it was once a very Jewish trade... still is, in some parts.
Sharon pays the price for this, but the price is one of the better sandwiches.
Fluff was invented in Somerville, while the sandwich was invented by the hyper-intellect of Melrose's Emma Curtis, then was first sold en masse from Swampscott and is now patented by a Lynn company
If my map for Fluffernutter doesn't represent one of those regions, try to understand... if you know the difference, it doesn't matter, and if you don't know the difference, it doesn't matter. We work in blocs.
The Fluffernutter is a strange duck. No one in New England tries to order one in a deli, aside from tourists. It's more of a stoner creation that wasn't invented by a stoner, and very much akin to something that Elvis might have made for himself when his personal chef was away.
The Fluffernutter is frequently mentioned as a candidate for Official State Sandwich, but that's a job for some other food critic.
BOSTON 1B... FENWAY FRANKS
Hot Dogs are a tough sell on this list... but any tourist visiting Boston should check out Fenway Park, and everyone checking out Fenway Park should have Fenway Franks. She gets her own category for this.
Hot Dogs and Hamburgers hold an almost honorary place on this list. It would be hard to choose one spot for each of them. They could very easily dominate this map.
If you need closure, imagine that, if you zoomed in on the map, you'd see tiny little dots of two different colors all over the state. If you zoomed in even further, you'd see these dots almost everywhere. The larger dots would be the 7-11 type stores selling hot dogs, or the McDonald's type stores selling hamburgers. The smaller dots would be an endless series of barbecues.
Remember, hot dogs are a choking risk. 17% of childhood asphyxiations one year involved hot dogs.
If you want a dot for burgers, put it out in Wilbraham or wherever Friendly's keeps her corporate HQ. If you think Italian Sausage belongs, put another dot just outside the stadium.
THE NORTH SHORE... ROAST BEEF SANDWICHES
Places like Mike's and Nick's and Harrison's sort of set the tone. Mike's Roast Beef in Everett pretty much slams the door on the Fluffernutter's run of regional sandwich dominance, although they trade neighborhoods off into Swampscott and Lynn.
You can get a good lobster roll on the North Shore, in spite of what a Cape Codder or a Mainer tells you. They also have enough Italians (and people of other nationalities who know that Italians rule the kitchen) that any sub with "parmesan" in it is going to sell.
However, this is the North Shore. Answer #1 is "roast beef." Answer #2 is "huge gap." Answer #3 is "everything else."
NE CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS... THE ITALIAN SUB
This sub and this region are where we start generalizing.
We're at that section of the menu where we have to make sure that we get all of the important sandwiches into the mix, and we won't allow the Italian to get too far away from Boston.
I'm sure that a thousand Italian Subs are sold in Somerville for every Fluffernutter ordered off a Kid's Menu, although the Fluff makes a comeback when you factor in Home Consumption.
There is no reason other than a high concentration of Italians to put this sub here. The inland areas of Massachusetts rock a 10-15% concentration of people claiming Italian heritage, and those people (and non-Italian lovers of Italian food) move a lot of Large Italian, Everything subs.
It gets points (as do Meatball and Steak Bombs) for being among the most popular in every town. It's a big seller everywhere you put it, even in neighborhoods with people who may have a grandfather who took a bullet at Anzio.
Is there a better use anywhere for oil and vinegar?
SE CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS... THE STEAK BOMB
BOOM! You dropped a (steak) bomb on me, baby...
Make no mistake, the cheesesteak sandwich is Philadelphia's sandwich by any definition. However, the Steak Bomb is very much identified with New England, and rare is the Massachusetts sub shop which doesn't offer it.
We differ from Philly in that we don't use Cheez-Whiz, and that we do (sometimes) use salami. I think we sort of take the W in that equation, but Philly knows best.
This is another famous sandwich being used for a region that doesn't really have any claim for Steak Bomb dominance. It's just how the map shook itself out. We put the Italian sub up in NE Central Massachusetts because we think- never actually researched- that there are more Eye-tal-yans up there.
We even moved the Bomb down into the sections of Bristol County that the turkeys and the Portagees didn't claim.
NW/CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS... THE MEATBALL SUB
Meatball, Italian and Steak/Cheese could have gone in any order. The Meatball Sub was sort of driven out into the deep sticks by the other two, but that doesn't mean that we have any less love for it. The sub in this picture ended up in my tummy.
There aren't any large concentrations of Italians out in the western part of the state, so why not call it a nice place for New York hero ideas to blend with Massachusetts sub themes?
At worst, even at some dumpy Deerfield sandwich shop, you should be able to get a tolerable meatball sub. Learn to live with it. The original, rough draft of this article had "Something you killed yourself" for everything west of Worcester.
If you want to push the issue, we'd include Chicken, Veal and Eggplant parmesan subs as well in this category.
It sort of serves as the de facto resting place for Hamburgers, too.
The main idea in this section is that the UMass-Amherst area should get dibs on the classic broke-kid sandwich.
The PB&J should probably be the top sandwich in every region of the state, because Children. We kept moving her west, however... but she went no further than Amherst.
I'm tempted to pay homage to Springfield and Holyoke's Latino population with some sort of ethnic sandwich... but, yo, PB&J!
They weren't far from getting Venison, so they should be happy with every kid's fave!
Peanut butter and jelly, her inventor unknown, was first suggested as a pairing for a sandwich by Julia Davis Chandler in 1901 in the Boston Cooking-School Magazine of Culinary Science and Domestic Economics.
SOUTHERN BERKSHIRES... GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH
Our tendency to outsource kid sandwiches to the western regions continues.
Much like the PB&J, the Grilled Cheese is probably consumed more in the North Shore than the Roast Beef sandwich which the region is known for. It tends to be the first cooked-sandwich that a kid learns how to make.
The GC may have indeed toppled a heavyweight in the East if it were something that you order in a deli. It is a Kid's Menu favorite in family restaurants all around New England, but it heads out to the Berkshires in these rankings.
We were going to link an Epic Meal Time video about Grilled Cheese here, but they put McDoubles and Jagermeister into theirs... which is cool, but not representative of local culinary preferences.
NORTHERN BERKSHIRES... THE HAM AND CHEESE SANDWICH
"Get the cheese and the bread for the ham."
The ham and cheese is the last major sandwich to make this list.
It may also be the most boring sandwich beyond Tuna Fish and (unfried) Bologna. Perhaps the first choice of nobody, it still stops short of being the last resort.
We also have it here as a landmark. Once you have H&C on the menu, you really do have the basics of a sub shop menu completed. We've missed a few (see "Notable Exceptions," below), some of them important, but you would have the basics handled.
I've been disrespecting the Ham... its the #2 sandwich in America, trailing only turkey.
DEEP IN THE SWAMPS AND HIGH IN THE HILLS... FRIED BOLOGNA
This is an Appalachian-born sandwich, and it works up the mountain chains into the Bay State.
I put it out here because you get the sense that it might be someone's Christmas dinner once you get into those mountain towns.
This sandwich is very popular throughout Massachusetts, a sort of Poor Man's Pastrami.
It is a Swamp Yankee treat of the highest order.
Notable Exceptions, or sandwiches that didn't get a region:
Tuna Fish
Cuban Sandwich
Dunkin' Donuts Breakfast Sandwich
Sausage And Peppers
The Elvis (PB & banana)
Chicken Salad
American
Egg Salad
Vegetarian
Seafood Salad
Corned Beef
Buffalo Chicken
Bratwurst
Butter Sandwich
Taco/Burrito/Enchilada
Jam Sandwich
Pulled Pork
Miracle Whip Sandwich
Chicken Cutlet
French Dip
Filet-o-Fish style sandwiches
Sloppy Joe/Manwich
