Does Appalachia have a defining sandwich?

I love Netflix because you can search for little-known food documentaries. Recently, I found a Rick Sebak film that aired in 2002 on PBS stations called “Sandwiches That You Will Like,” and it forced me to ask the question: Does Appalachia, or even my native Southwest Virginia, have a special regional sandwich?

The documentary, which I highly recommend for all foodies because you can not only plan your vacations around visiting some of these incredible sandwich joints, but because you can also glean all kinds of great recipes to use at home — like for the Elvis, a grilled concoction filled with peanut butter, banana, bacon and honey found at Peanut Butter & Co. in New York City or “The Veggie” made of baked eggplant, sauteed broccoli, roasted red peppers and sharp provolone on an Italian roll from Chickie’s Italian Deli in south Philly.

I’m dying to visit Houston, Texas, of all places, so I can eat at Thelma’s, a place featured in Sebak’s documentary. It’s a little diner owned by a former truck driver from Louisiana who always dreamed of opening her own barbecue place. And boy, when you see her sandwiches, you’ll want to go, too. Makes my mouth water to remember the footage on those monster plates of meat and sauce.

“The bread’s only good for soppin’,” Thelma says.

But I also started to wonder if there was a particular sandwich combination that defines the Appalachian region. I started asking around, and most people came up with the same failed attempts as I did:

Grilled cheese?

Please, that’s a ubiquitous American food.

Fried spam?

No, they have that in the Midwest.

Fried balogna? No, again, common in Appalachia, but eaten all over the U.S.

Then I remembered my first trip to the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival in Ferrum four years ago where I found a little stand staffed by church ladies, who did nothing but turn out the best country ham biscuits I’ve ever tasted. I ate one even though I had earlier gorged on a big bowl of brunswick stew. And I bought a second one to take home for dinner, or a snack should I grow faint on the long drive back home to Christiansburg.

There was general assent from my limited focus group that the ham biscuit — even the Hardee’s version — is indeed a specific regional sandwich.

The biscuit, of course, is served in many areas of the country, but southerners are generally seen as experts in the baking of this homey quick bread.

But it’s the filling, the country ham, that’s particular to the south and Appalachia. In fact, meat artisans throughout the region often riff on the theme of salty, smoky cured meat.

In Virginia, country ham is salt- or sugar-cured and smoked, but must be fried or baked or otherwise cooked before being eaten. North Carolina has a “salt-and-pepper” country ham. Even Kentucky and Tennessee have their own versions.

Find all the country ham-related information you could ever want at www.country-ham.com/about.html.

Tags: biscuit, country ham, ham biscuit, Hardee's restaurant, sandwiches, Virginia ham