Help Me Settle A Debate - What's The Best 1st Bite When Eating A Diagonal Sandwich?

I eat lunch every single day and I love it. There's absolutely no denying that. I'm a huge lunch guy.

Lately, I've been eating a lot of ham sandwiches because pork is delicious and best served as an amalgamated loaf sliced to translucency and softly piled into heaping, rolling hills. 

That said, I still like roast beef a lot. 

I also enjoy salami, bologna, turkey, capicola, gabagool, and just about everything in-between. 

Truthfully, it's just not safe to be a cold cut around me. 

And more important to this blog and conversation, I've really leaned into diagonal cuts the last few months. I would guess at least the last 150 sammies from my house have been sliced at a 43-47 degree angle. Why? I honestly don't know. I just got up one day craving a better bite-ratio and haven't looked back since. 

On that topic - there's no debating that diagonal cuts trump your traditional park avenue 50/50 vertical split. It's a better ingredient balance with much better chomping lanes to navigate. In that spirit, I'm a little disappointed it took me 37 dedicated years to make this switch. 

"Carl looks good for 37" - your old lady 

All of this to say I had a great ham sandwich yesterday with swiss and honey dijon on griddle-toasted sourdough. Wrapped in foil to keep it marinated in that juice and steam. 

The first half came and went in a flash. That's because it was delicious. 

But as I settled into the 2nd half, I realized I wanted to enjoy the sandwich. Not just dominate it like a savage, but really ENJOY its subtle yet profound flavor profile. 

It was in this moment I realized, I had no idea where to consciously start. Sure I have my instincts, this is different. I want to make an intentional decision that best reflects my objectives and personal values. Which brings me to this: 

I had no idea about the first bite. I stared at the sandwich long enough to compromise its structural integrity. I knew it was risky but I just couldn't act. I had no idea where to start. 

The first half was sloppy. I started center cut and ended splitting it in half. Way too much crust in the last bite. Way too much ham in the 2nd. Really just bad and embarrassing execution. 

So now that I have a chance to think about it, I'm really torn. In my head: 4 is a better bite than 1, but 5 is the worst bite on the board. Then I saw 2 and 3 similar to baseball players in that they should hit 2/3 because they're better. You want guys on base when they come up to the plate. 

5 could lead off if you needed, but you're much better hitting it last in traditional fastball counts.  

So now I'm really in-between 4 and 1. And personally I think there's just too much ham in the 4th corner to be a starting point. You want to eat west-to-east into 4 and not the other way around or else you risk too much crust.

It was in this moment that I realized 1 is essentially making a sacrifice for every other bite in the sandwich. You get a small bite into 1 and then everybody else gets instantly better. Like running the ball on 1st down to create 2nd and 6 and 3rd and short. You can't take a shot down field every play or else you're going to tip off the defense, which makes everyones job much harder. You have to disguise exotic schemes and right now that means taking out 1. 

From there, I think you can freestyle it yourself. Personally I'm going 1-2-3/5/ into a 4. But you can persuade me in and out of that sequencing provided we agree it has to start with #1 or else I'm not eating that sandwich. 

Do you agree or disagree? 

And if you had to pick one lunch meat for the rest of your life, are you going ham, roast beef, turkey or other? Please respond thoughtfully in the comment section below.

And of course, don't forget to pack a lunch tomorrow.