As is likely true of most workplaces these days, it’s exceedingly rare for The Food Section’s contributors to meet up in person. If it wasn’t for our three-person Charlotte bureau, I doubt we’d ever have more than two TFS team members in the same room at the same time.
Just like bigger companies, this tiny publication tries to make up for physical distance with virtual gatherings. For example, we marked the end of last year by Zooming with a gifted Ukrainian fruit carver who’s immigrated to Atlanta. (I spent our session desecrating a perfectly good orange. If you’re ever looking to get into fruit artistry, I’ve got a toolset for the taking.)
Recently, though, I had the chance to meet TFS restaurant reviewer Michael Stern for lunch. The occasion was liver-and-onion day at Unique Catering, the same luncheonette which wowed attendees at Legs & Cans, our fried chicken frenzy in Aiken last spring.
Fittingly, the midday catchup came together through digital channels: He’d raved about liver in a review he filed electronically; I mentioned my love of liver in the intro I recorded to accompany his reading of the column, and after listening to the podcast, he got in touch to tell me about liver-and-onion Thursdays.
Want access to the complete archive of Stern reviews?
Steff Hooper’s liver was terrific, as promised. But what was most memorable about the visit was how the customer in front of us took her serving. She wanted the liver-and-onions between two slices of white bread.
Stern and I were stunned. In all our liver-eating days, we couldn’t recall ever encountering a liver-and-onion sandwich. But Hooper assured us that it was a standard request, although she reckoned even more patrons take their liver home to mix up with grits in a kind of DIY livermush salute.
Fascinated, I started poking around the archives to see where and when liver-and-onion sandwich affinity originated. There were plenty of liver sandwich citations in 20th century newspapers, particularly in years when economic hardship or wartime rations put fancier meat out of reach, but the home cooking columnists and advertisers almost always meant liverwurst spread on a bun.
A true liver-and-onion sandwich was considered so wacky that the makers of a comical multiple-choice quiz in 1981 asked whether The Wizard of Oz’s Tin Man was after a heart, a tin woman, or a liver-and-onion sandwich. (Imagine if he’d found all three!) More than a decade later, when food writers at the Arizona Daily Star turned up a specimen at a restaurant in the foothills of Tucson, they described it as a “trademark item,” entirely unknown elsewhere.
They were nearly right—except they’d failed to check the menu at The Old Post Office, the adored Edisto Island, South Carolina restaurant helmed by Philip Bardin.
Bardin passed away in 2022, but the restaurant’s legacy is preserved in a 2004 cookbook, Cooking in the Lowcountry from The Old Post Office Restaurant, authored by Jane and Michael Stern. Three years later, they included Bardin’s recipe for liver-and-onion sandwiches in their book Roadfood Sandwiches.
“By golly, yes!” Stern wrote when I asked about it. “I completely forgot about that.”
Still, neither of us will ever forget Bardin, an exceptionally talented chef and much-loved mensch. The Food Section today is honored to share his recipe for liver-and-onion sandwiches, just in time for tomato season. No offense to Unique Catering, but as a Mobile Press-Register reporter wrote in his 2007 review of Roadfood Sandwiches, “it’s cheaper than driving to South Carolina.”
Liver ‘N’ Onion Sandwich with Firecracker Sauce
Ingredients:
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 2-4 ounces of beef liver, sliced
- 1 cup flour
- 1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 yellow onion, sliced in medium thick rings
- 4 slices pumpernickel bread, toasted
- 1/2 cup Firecracker Sauce, heated (see recipe)
- 4 thick slices of Provolone cheese
Directions:
- Combine the buttermilk and salt and soak the beef liver in the liquid for a full hour.
- Combine the flour, Italian seasoning, and black pepper. Dredge the liver through this mixture and pan-fry it until cooked through, about 3 minutes per side. Remove the liver and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Heat oil and butter in a heavy skillet. Add onion rings, and as they cook, place each piece of cooked liver onto a slice of toasted pumpernickel bread. Top the liver with the cooked-soft onions and a nice, thick topping of Firecracker Sauce. Top each half sandwich with 2 slices of Provolone and melt it quickly under a hot broiler. Top with the other slice of toast and cut in half.
Firecracker Sauce:
Firecracker Sauce is best if made one day ahead of use.
Ingredients:
- 2 Roma tomatoes, sliced thin
- 1/2 onion, sliced thin
- 1 jalapeno, sliced thin
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon Frank’s Original Hot sauce
- 1/2 cup of tomato puree or fresh salsa
Directions:
Heat olive oil in a saucepan. Sauté the tomatoes, onion, and jalapeno until they are tender. You may want to add a touch of sugar. Add the hot sauce and puree; simmer on low for about five minutes. Let cool and refrigerate.
No Comments