Research and science will only tell you so much, but as far as I can establish, our mouths are no bigger than they were five million years ago. Sandwiches, however, seem to be getting bigger year on year.

Even the simplest lunchtime sando calls for two hands to hold doorstopper-thick bread and layer upon layer of filling. Why so big?

I’ve worked it out. It’s because sandwiches have been released from the tyranny of the square white sandwich loaf.

The rise of sourdough bakeries and a broadening variety of artisanal breads have created dense and sturdy vehicles that can carry more filling than previously thought possible.

In your dreams, Dagwood Bumstead. (Young people, Dagwood was a long-running comic strip character famous for raiding the fridge at midnight for a sandwich.)

The modern-day sandwich bar is likely to bake its own bread, with operators competing to create the next big thing. And I mean big. The modest emmencheez (ham and cheese) semmitch (sandwich) of the previous generation is disappearing, replaced by a deli-fest of diversity, fresh thinking, hand-made generosity and pickles.

At Mortadeli in Torquay on Victoria’s Surf Coast, layers of mortadella, sopressa and provolone are piled into bread with ’nduja, mustard and pickled guindilla chillies.

It’s a mouthful, only to be outdone by Sydney’s AP Bakery, which does a gigantic muffaletta of salami, ham and pickles that’s so big, I counted 32 different layers before my eyes went funny. It’s so big, they sell it by the quarter. So big, in fact, no mouth is big enough.

Now all we need are a few renegades to get ahead of the curve and start bringing back the small, elegant finger sandwich and dainty tea sandwich.

It has already happened in restaurants and bars as a snack to have with drinks. Note Ester’s blood sausage sanger in Sydney’s Chippendale, a homage to the Bunnings sausage sizzle; and the prawn club sandwich – poached prawns, fermented hot sauce, iceberg lettuce – in soft white bread at Andrew McConnell’s Apollo Inn bar in Melbourne.

But for the best sandwiches in town, it pays to know someone who’s died. At the wake, there’ll be endless trays of small, soft, three-bite sandwiches with just a paper-thin line of smoked salmon, chicken and mayo or slippery cucumber inside. Aaah, sandwiches to die for.

theemptyplate@goodweekend.com.au

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