The Award-Winning Arkansas Sandwich That Made Vegetarian History

Everyone has a different favorite sandwich combination. From a BLT and a turkey club to a ham and cheese or an Italian sub, what you prefer between two slices of bread is personal. What is objective, though, is that most people like some type of meat on their sandwiches. Even with vegan and vegetarian diets gaining popularity in this day and age, convincing a Reuben lover that a meatless sub is going to top their corned beef sandwich is no easy task. That's why it's all the more shocking that a vegetarian sandwich won the National Sandwich Contest in 1979. Jimmy's Serious Sandwiches of Little Rock, Arkansas, still serves the award-winning "The Garden" sandwich, so you can try it for yourself.

This balanced vegetarian sandwich features Swiss, cheddar, and provolone cheeses with mushrooms, pumpkin seeds, and spinach pate served on pumpernickel bread. The year it won the blue ribbon, it beat over 1,000 other sandwich entries. In honor of its accomplishment, "The Garden" has a blue ribbon next to it on the menu at Jimmy's Serious Sandwiches, so you won't miss it. Although it won over 40 years ago, customers still give the sandwich 5 stars, calling it "amazing."

Regardless of whether you have plans to go to Arkansas at some point in the future, you can recreate this sub combo at home. To make the spinach pate, combine thawed frozen spinach with minced green onion, mayonnaise, minced green bell pepper, lemon juice, and salt. Don't skip the quick prep step of squeezing the excess moisture of the frozen spinach. Then, butter two slices of pumpernickel bread on one side and toast them in a pan over the stove. Top one slice with the spinach mixture, alfalfa sprouts, sauteed mushrooms, and pumpkin seeds. Melt one slice each of provolone, Swiss, and cheddar cheese on the other slice of bread, and use that to top the sandwich.

This sandwich is perfect as is, but if you're opting to make it at home, there's no harm in getting a bit creative. You can make an easy pumpernickel bread recipe to add to the from-scratch factor, try out different cheese combos, add caramelized onions and/or sauteed peppers.