The Monday Column

Maybe it’s time the North bowed down and accepted that South Island food is better.

Island cuisine — the dagwood sandwich — is harder to define. It’s long been a widespread option down south but unknown in the north.

If percentage knowledge of the dagwood sandwich was graphed against New Zealand running South to North, it would start high at Bluff, hit 100 per cent over Dunedin then slowly taper to nothing by Picton. Completely flat lining across the entire North Island. Strangely the dagwood remains invisible to North Islanders even when they move to the south.

A few weeks back I asked All Black captain Kieran Read about the dagwood sandwich. Kieran was born in Papakura, but joined the Canterbury development squad straight out of school.

The great man has been down there a lot ever since. He’s played 138 games for the Crusaders. The man loves Canterbury and is loved by Cantabrians. Yet he has no idea what the dagwood sandwich is.

Prop Wyatt Crockett, on the other hand, is Christchurch-born and as such knows the dagwood sandwich intimately.

So what exactly is the South Island dagwood sandwich? Well, it’s hard to say. Its contents are non specific.

It often has either ham, chicken or some other meat in it. You’ll generally get grated cheese, lettuce, tomato, maybe some beetroot. Mayo and or mustard or some other condiment not of your choosing. If you’re unlucky you’ll get grated carrot. It’s a big hearty sandwich. The dagwood is found in southern tuck shops, bakeries and cafes. Great on a cold day. Interestingly, in the US the dagwood is multi-layered. It is often referred to as a dagwood club sandwich. Like its South Island relative, its contents are random. However, the US dagwood always has an olive pierced by a wooden skewer rammed through it. This would never happen to the singlelevelled South Island dagwood.

The origins of the dagwood date back to the 1930s. Dagwood Bumstead from the comic strip Blondie was frequently illustrated making enormous multi-layered sandwiches.

How the dagwood came to the South Island and lost its levels is a mystery. But thank God it did. So