Baguette Poisson

Sandwich Truite Fumée

A river fish, not a sea one: smoked trout is leaner and gentler than salmon, so the sandwich adds a cold-butter carrier and a squeeze of lemon, then keeps everything else quiet enough to taste it.

Sandwich Thon-Tomate

Tinned tuna and ripe tomato in a baguette, dressed in olive oil rather than mayonnaise: the plainest form of France's most-eaten fish, and the everyday loaf the Niçois pan-bagnat charter was written.

Sandwich Thon-Mayonnaise

Tuna from a Breton can, mayonnaise spooned through until the flakes bind, mounded into a split baguette. The chilled boulangerie line that travels in printed paper.

Sandwich Thon-Crudités

The French boulangerie's salad-and-fish loaf: a bound tuna floor under tomato, cucumber, lettuce, sometimes egg, eaten cold within the lunch hour.

Sandwich Tellines

On the Camargue coast a tellinier rakes a kilo of wedge clams off the wave line at low tide; an hour later they open in a persillade pan and go into a split baguette with the juice.

Sandwich Tarama

Tarama is roe worked into a dense pink cream, sold by weight in Greek delis long before it reached French shelves. The sandwich is just good bread under that cream.

Sandwich Surimi-Crudités

Surimi-crudités: the cheap French baguette built on the pink-and-white crab stick, an industrial pollock paste with no crab in it, plus raw vegetables and a lemony mayonnaise.

Sandwich Saumon Fumé

Smoked salmon sandwich; often with cream cheese.

Sandwich Saumon-Avocat

Salmon with avocado; modern combination.

Sandwich Sardines Grillées

The Sandwich Sardines Grillées is built around fresh sardines cooked over fire, not lifted from a tin. Meatier and smokier than the canned kind, it tilts toward lemon, pepper, and bright char.

Sandwich Rollmops

Unpin the skewer and a rollmops springs loose: a herring fillet soured in vinegar, wound around onion and gherkin. The bread's only job is to give all that acid somewhere soft to land.

A brasserie plate of the Nord pushed into a loaf: shelled mussels in their wine-and-shallot liquor, hot fries packed in to brace the bite and drink the broth, eaten in a minute before the bread folds.

Sandwich Maquereau au Vin Blanc

White wine-marinated mackerel on bread.

Sandwich Lamproie

Lamprey (eel-like fish) prepared à la bordelaise in sandwich; rare delicacy.

Sandwich Hareng-Pommes de Terre

Herring with potatoes on bread.

Sandwich Crevettes-Mayonnaise

Shrimp with mayo.

Sandwich Brandade

Brandade is salt cod beaten with olive oil into an actual emulsion, no flake left, spread thick on crusted bread. Durand wrote it down in 1830 as branlade and never once called it Brandade Nîmoise.