Death by Sandwich: II

Three Birds, One Stone



Am I a genius? Perhaps not. But I'm certainly a master of efficiency and killing figurative birds with figurative stones.

Some of you may recall my January post, "Kill Ed Levine: Death by Sandwich." Ed, a Serious Eats muckety-muck and sandwich fiend, had made a New Year's resolution to lose weight. I have a sincere aversion to New Year's resolutions and, in addition, the site's obvious attempt to pirate my readers by emulating this blog's name is a sad testament to Ed's lack of imagination.

I decided to set out on a year-long quest to sabotage Ed's diet by offering an array of tantalizing sandwiches.

As a consequence, I decided to set out on a year-long quest to sabotage Ed's diet by offering an array of tantalizing sandwiches. Not wishing to kill myself in the process of doing away with Ed I've elected to pursue the project over the course of a year, offering a tantalizing sandwich each month. And so we come to month two.

I've been pondering the February sandwich but was having problems coming up with something suitably fiendish until yesterday morning when the stars were aligned, the birds were in a row, and I had a handy rock: A pancake sandwich.

Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, which in some areas is celebrated by eating pancakes and, so, also known as Pancake Tuesday. It's also Super Tuesday when folks around the country to select the politicians they think will provide the most pork. Pancakes? Pork? Killing Ed Ed? Three birds with one stone.

So I dug up my favorite cornmeal pancake recipe, thawed out a few slices of Benton's bacon, and made a sandwich. I particularly enjoyed imagining Ed's envy of my ready access to Benton's ham, bacon, and sausage. (Benton's actual smokehouse is 40 minutes away from here.)

Cornmeal Pancakes
Makes 8 pancakes.

1 cup flour
1/2 cup corn meal
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 1/3 cups milk
1 egg
3 Tbsp. butter

In a large bowl, thoroughly mix flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. In a smaller bowl, whisk together milk, egg, and butter. Whisk liquid ingredients into dry ingredients.

Meanwhile, lightly oil a skillet or griddle and warm over high, medium heat. When the griddle's hot, make pancakes, allowing bubbles to form before turning over.

This recipe is a take on the Southern hoecake, which is often made only with cornmeal. I find true hoecakes rather heavy, but love the texture cornmeal adds to these cakes. In the photos above, you can see the aforementioned Benson's smoked bacon peaking out, and they're doused in another Southern favorite: sorghum. Eat your heart out, Ed.

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