The Sandwich Sorcerer
Admiral Biscuit
There were a lot of restaurants around my hotel, ranging from quite fancy to rather bland. Thus far, the plainest I'd encountered was the Thermopolium, which sold two kinds of porridge and two kinds of bread. The choices varied by day, and it was quite popular for laborers and taxi-drivers. The most exclusive one as far as I could tell was La Valette du Var—the doorpony just shook her head as I glanced at the menu.
Judging by the fact that they had a doorpony, it was probably out of my price range, anyway.
There were plenty of other choices, though, and I made an ever-widening culinary circle of my neighborhood in Manehattan.
I'd passed The Sandwich Sorcerer several times before I finally went in, mostly because I hadn't realized it was a restaurant. There wasn't any outside seating, and it was on the second floor, which was not where I'd expected to find a restaurant.
The dining area was best described as Goodwill chic—none of the furniture matched, and the walls were covered with slightly garish pictures of unicorns. The only thing that they were lacking was a velvet pony-Elvis painting.
Nevertheless, they seemed to have a decent clientele, mostly of young college-aged unicorns. Some of them were still sporting backpacks, and over at one table, a small group of students was studying together while eating lunch.
Every head in the place turned when I walked in—I guess this restaurant didn't get too many human customers—and a moment later, there was a unicorn who was so attentive that she could only be the owner.
I honestly liked it better when I got a more jaded waiter, who didn't feel the need to ask if I wanted to use silverware or if humans could drink apple juice. But I couldn't hold it against her; she was completely sincere.
I'd been in a few themed restaurants back on Earth, and I also hadn't gotten fully accustomed to pony menu conventions, so the fact that the sandwiches all had names didn't strike me as all that odd.
But as I kept looking, I didn't see what I'd consider standard sandwiches on a pony menu. Things like a daisy sandwich, which was their version of PB&J, simply weren't on the menu, but there was Burning Heart's chocolate and onion sandwich (not as strange as it sounds) and Cayenne's hot hot pepper on spicy sriracha bread (it's hot!), neither of which sounded terribly appealing. Star Swirl's coffee bean butter on thick pumpernickel bread (keeps you up all night), Mistmane's asparagus, egg and blue cheese sandwich (tastes better than it looks), and Snowfall Frost's old bread and hay sandwich (cheap). Besides the parenthetical notes after each ingredient list, there was a number.
I could have asked what she'd recommend, although I had a deep dread that that would turn into a long Q and A session about what humans ate, and there was the possibility that I could die of starvation before she finally recommended a sandwich.
So instead, I pointed to Zesty Gourmand's toast on bread sandwich and asked her if anypony actually ever ordered it.
“Of course,” she said brightly. “It's the quintessential sandwich, don't you think?”
“It's toast on bread. That's not a sandwich.”
“But it is! That's why it's so genius; it reduces a sandwich to its most basic elements. And it was a very daring choice for her to make.”
“Okay.” I held up my hand and ticked off the problems with the sandwich on my fingers. I should have considered a different gesture; I think she was paying more attention to my finger counting than my point. “First, it's bread on bread. On Earth, we call that a loaf of bread, and that's how it comes from the store. Second, that's the most boring sandwich ever. Even Snowfall Frost's old bread and hay is gonna have more flavor. Third, do you know what a hipster is? And fourth, what do you mean by daring? A three-year-old could do better.”
She rolled her eyes. “Zesty Gourmand is the most brilliant restaurant critic ever. Just because you don't understand the genius and daring of her sandwich doesn't make it any less great!”
I held up my head. “Maybe we're misunderstanding each other here. I don't mean to insult your sandwiches, but—“
“My sandwiches? Mine isn't even on the menu. I thought. . . “ she wrinkled her muzzle. “Well, if you must know, I thought that I didn't deserve to be in such good company.”
I was completely confused. “Such good company?”
“You know.” She motioned around to the paintings on the walls. “Starswirl? Clover the Clever? Mistmane? Zesty? Where does little Spuckie fit among them all? I haven't done anything great; all I know how to do is make sandwiches. I flunked out of Canterlot University.”
“What does that have to do with sandwiches?” She'd lost me somewhere along the line.
“What does that have to do with sandwiches? That—that was the one test that I did pass. Every unicorn's got to invent food to graduate from a proper university.”
“Invent . . . food?”
“Yeah. Like, a sandwich or salad or dessert.”
“That doesn't make any sense.”
“Sure it does.” I could see as Spuckie shifted into lecture mode. “Back when the Wendigos first started freezing everypony out, but before it got too bad, Princess Platinum realized that to be a proper unicorn, you had to be able to feed yourself, and the only way that you could prove that you could do that was to invent some kind of food.
“That didn't work out like she'd planned, 'cause it turns out that you can't make very good food from dirt no matter how hard you try or how good at spells you are. You burn up more energy than you can make, usually, because of—well, you're not a unicorn, you probably wouldn't understand the technical reasons. Anyway, after unification she was gonna take that out of the laws, but decided to keep it as a reminder. But you don't have to enchant dirt anymore.”
“So all these sandwiches, they were literally invented by the unicorn whose name is in the menu?”
“Yup! I just went through a lot of the old records. And some of the more contemporary ones, 'cause ponies' palates have changed since the old days.”
“I see.” I glanced back down at the menu with my fresh understanding of the historical context behind the sandwiches. Maybe I would have appreciated it more as a unicorn. “What kind of sandwich did you invent?”
“Um.” She scuffed her hoof on the floor. “It was an apple sandwich with cashew butter and a little bit of black pepper to spice it up.”
“Can I have that?”
I thought she was going to come up with some reason why she couldn't make me one, but Spuckie grinned. “I'd love to.”
It was delicious.