Cuban Sandwich

A perfect storm of multiple ingredients, the Cuban sandwich, also known as a Cuban Mix or simply a Cuban, is a sheaf of roast pork, sliced ham, Swiss cheese, puckery pickle slices, mustard, and mayo (maybe) packed into a torpedo of crusty Cuban bread. Most Cubans in Tampa, where it is said the sandwich was invented, include Genoa salami. Most in Miami do not. Tampa Cubans tend to be outfitted with lettuce and tomato. The sandwich would fall to pieces as constructed, but it attains poise and harmony in a hot plancha, the Spanish toaster that is basically a toothless waffle iron. The heavy top of the plancha presses down on the sandwich and its assembled ingredients, causing all the different flavor notes to bond together as one resounding chord inside the crisped loaf.