The Jabberwocky Signature Toastie

It must be something about our menu board, because to blame it on customers is inconsistent with them always being right. Especially with the gazebo setup, people often order the Jabberwocky toastie. I’m not sure what they expect to receive, as there is no description for what the Jabberwocky toastie contains, but clearly we need a signature toastie.

For the first year of our existence we had nothing that could really be called a signature dish. Then the Manwich came along, and toasties would never be the same again. An obscenity in toastie form, the Manwich has unintentionally become the thing we are best known for, and while I’m perfectly happy to be co-creator of the most naughty sandwich in history, I’m not sure it is our signature dish.

For a start, I very rarely eat them. Mostly because in the battle to not become the size of a truck even though I sell toasties for a living it is necessary to abstain from Manwiches most of the time, and I can’t finish a whole one anyway. I want our signature toastie to be cheese-tastic, so straight away the sweet ones are out. It also needs to be one that I would be able to eat every day, so triple-deckers, while probably actually our signature sandwiches, are out.

The Original Signatures. The Manwich, the Juggernaut, the Kraken, the Great Balls of Fire and the Old MacDonald, clockwise from top left.

Starting at the beginning, Barny and I went through the toasties we have (60 as I’m writing now) to try to find one that might qualify for Best in Show. They are all tasty in their own right, but we wanted something more signaturey. We just weren’t sure what.

A quest for toastie perfection is the obvious solution to this, so here is the plan: Barny and I will both come up with our own jabberwocky signature toastie, and then let everyone else decide which one is most signaturey. Whatever that means. The festival season is over, so we finally have time for projects that involve regular mealtimes and not sleeping in tents.

Ultimately I think the Manwich and it’s triple-decker toastie brethren (The Great Balls of Fire, The Juggernaut, The Kraken and the Old MacDonald and the [next time we are at Digbeth – 26/9/14]) will probably be our signature toasties no matter what we do, but it would be nice to find some new combination of flavours that haven’t been toasted before, which we could melt for the good of mankind. There are some great sandwiches out there that we already pay tribute to, like the Reuben, the Club and the Tuna Melt. I want to try and find a combination that Wikipedia will tell future generations was first toasted in Leamington Spa, in this van, by the Jabberwocky; makers of the Manwich.

Any ingredient suggestions for this epic mystery melt will be gratefully received in the comments below, or on a social media channel of your preference.