May 10, 2024

Notable Sandwich Tribute to Steve Albini

By David Swanson

Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where Talia and I stumble our way through the strange and mutable document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches. This week, a special tribute to notable sandwich lover Steve Albini.

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On Wednesday, when I heard that Steve Albini had died, my first impulse was to cue up one of the iconic albums he produced—P.J. Harvey’s Rid of Me, or Surfer Rosa by the Pixies, or Nirvana’s swan song, In Utero. My second impulse was to google “Steve Albini sandwiches.” Albini, who suffered a heart attack at age 61, wore many hats over his four-decade career: singer-guitarist for seminal Chicago punk bands such as Big Black and Shellac; go-to indie-rock sound engineer (he rejected the “producer” designation); professional poker player; baseball fan; foodie.

It was this last identity I felt compelled to revisit.

Even beyond his evangelism for the Monte Cristo, Steve Albini was a notable sandwich hero. In fact, when I ran that aforementioned google search, one of the top results was our own column on the Chip Butty, which (I had somehow forgotten) was framed around a patented Albini twitter rant.

As you can see, Albini excelled in the role of public troll—a proto-edgelord who delighted in skewering anyone and anything he deemed inauthentic, or just lame. But while he could certainly be an asshole, he was a repentant one who lamented the misogyny of his younger days. And in the last couple of decades this kinder, gentler Steve Albini also reinvented himself as something of a food influencer and noted authority on culinary Chicago.

For example, while showing Anthony Bourdain around his hometown, he introduced viewers to the glories of the breaded steak sandwich at Ricobene’s:

In interviews and on his old food blog, mariobatalivoice, he was happy to share his feelings on sandwiches, and sandwich adjacent foods.

On the eating habits of touring musicians:

“Buy groceries and feed yourself, even on the road. Road food is terrible because the roadside eateries know the feeders will be hundreds of miles away before heartburn or diarrhea set in. For less than the cost of a Big Mac, fries and a Coke, you can buy a loaf of fresh bread and some good cheese or roast beef, which you will enjoy much more.”

On soup:

“I'm on soup like Sinatra on the cigarette girl.”

Steve Albini’s Three Minute Gazpacho.

On mayonnaise:

“Mayonnaise as it is now known is a bastardization of the Sauce Mayonnaise every saucier learns to make his first season as an apprentice. Pre-packaged mayonnaise sold in jars is almost nothing but tasteless vegetable oil and water, emulsified by gum and gelatin. I think this product is analogous in many ways to the CD, and its introduction has degraded the standard of eating in much the same way digital recording has degraded the standard of music.”

Steve Albini’s Sauce Mayonnaise

On toast:

“A rare few things in life are properly rated. Babe Ruth, properly rated. John Bonham, properly rated. Laying around on your day off doing fuck all, under-rated. Stealing bases, over-rated, catcher defense, under-rated. Backing vocals, probably number one most over-rated thing ever on earth. If there is a great celestial price/performance curve for every artistic endeavor, backing vocals are way out there on the continental shelf next to southern accent vocal coaches and gold plated toilets. Toast, the food item, is sadly under-rated. It may be the most under-rated food.”

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any quotes from Albini about some other Chicago food icons like next week’s sandwich, the jibarito, or a recent entry, the Italian Beef (although, when it comes to indie rock feuds, Albini is the king of Italian beef). But a few years ago, he did work the counter at legendary hot dog stand, Wieners Circle, along with fellow Windy City cheerleaders Jeff Tweedy and Jeff Garlin. That gig was a fundraiser for Poverty Alleviation Chicago, a charity founded by Albini's wife Heather Whinna. The legendary crank was also a die-hard, hands-on philanthropist.

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Given his status as a semi-professional eater from the city of broad shoulders, it’s somehow fitting that Albini should be felled by a heart attack, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept. Still, as a music fan, and as something of an authority on sandwiches (at least by virtue of this newsletter) I was heartened by a certain strain in the outpouring of affection: