Call him the Earl of Scanwich. On the website scanwiches.com, Jon Chonko posts spectacular scans of sandwiches, sliced crosswise to reveal their mouthwatering innards. His site is a leader in the burgeoning food-as-art trend (sometimes referred to irreverently as "food porn"), and it's so popular that it's spawned an upcoming book that will sandwich 125 full-color photographs between its covers -- available, fittingly, on National Sandwich Day, Nov. 23.
Making a Scanwich isn't as easy as say, slapping together a PB&J. "Some sandwiches I avoid because they're smooshy," Chonko told TODAY.com. "I sort of push the ingredients around and get the sandwich so it's sort of just resting gently on the scanner."
Chonko got into Scanwiching when he was working as a graphic designer in New York City's Soho district, which abounds in sandwich shops and delis. "The word 'scanwich' just sort of popped up among my coworkers, and I thought, 'Hey, that could be something,' " he recalled. So he fired up his girlfriend's scanner and got to work. "I've been doing it for two years," he said. "Over time I've gotten better."
But Chonko doesn't just scan sandwiches; he eats them, too. His passion is so sincere that when we asked what kind of sandwich he like best, he said: "That's like being asked to name your favorite child."
For a while Chonko was big into the banh mi, a Vietnamese concoction that typically includes meat fillings, pate, pickled carrots and other spices and condiments on a baguette (a sandwich historian, Chonko calls the banh mi "a product of French imperialism.") Lately, though, "I've been on a kick with clubs, trying all the clubs I can. They may be my personal favorite right now."
But he stressed that "I've never had a sandwich I didn't finish" -- even though he's "not really a fan of blue cheese" and has trouble tasting cilantro, which "tastes like soap to me." Still, "a well-made sandwich I can always get behind," Chonko said. "I eat every sandwich I scan -- unless my friends do."
Modestly, he points out that he is "not the first person to scan food." And not the last, either; a tumblr called Scandybars, which Chonko thinks is "great," is doing similar things with chocolate confectionery.
So what's the next frontier in food scanning? "Could be anything," Chonko told TODAY.com. "I'd love to see fruit and vegetables meticulously dissected."
For his own part, though, "I'm pretty happy to be the Scanwiches guy," he added. "There's lots of room on the Internet."
What do you think should be the next type of food to have its own scanning movement?