In an effort to conclude this somewhat aborted series from the spring, we present you with some of Penn's most delicious heart cloggers. Here they are, according to Vince Levy, Penn '09 and former DP/34th Street scribe. The final four installments of the series will come at some point. Have a sandwich you just love that hasn't been covered? Email us.

Philadelphia is the only city in the world more commonly associated with a sandwich than anything else (suck it Constitution Center, I'm going to Pat's). Legend holds that when Ben Franklin, but a lad, arrived in Philadelphia with just his kite and a few pennies, the first thing he bought was a loaf of bread -- or so I recall from the 18 pages I completed of my freshman Reading Project. After that, he probably got right down to sandwich time. At Penn, we still do.

Penn's greasiest curbside fare, after the jump. 

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In the latest installment of Tasty-Ass Sandwiches of the Ivy League, Harvard scribe Will Payne violates all social customs about typing with your mouth full.

Grendel's Den, a cozy Harvard Square restaurant that takes its name from the Beowulf antagonist (and not, disappointingly, from the alternate phrase for "taint"), has a motto above the door: "Resisting the tide of corporate homogenization since 1971." It's true -- even as the Square gets overrun by the twin threats of wrap and burrito, which a judge in Worcester actually ruled is not a sandwich [Ed.: We may or may not file an amicus curiae on the appeal], Grendel's reaffirms on the daily a fundamental truth that no amount of Qdoba will ever change: that everything -- everything -- is better between two slices of bread. 

Case in point: their legendary French Dip Sandwich. At the absurdly reasonable lunchtime price of $3.95 (that's with chips), this holy trinity of beef, broth and bread proves that you don't need your own personal endowment to indulge.

The French Dip, it is claimed, was discovered accidentally during the 1910s in Los Angeles, when a cook dropped a roast beef sandwich into a bowl of beef jus. In keeping with its baptismal origin, the sandwich was originally served pre-dipped, but Grendel's follows a more recent tradition by serving the cup of jus on the side.

It's this performative twist -- the Anointment -- that earns the French Dip its legendary status. There are few things better in this cold Cambridge of term papers than dipping two hefty sandwich halves into a bowl of piping hot beef gravy, biting through a crisp and warm outer crust of bread into the succulent layers of prime roast beef piled inside, and walking away only five dollars lighter (albeit a few pounds heavier). 

Like French fries, the sandwich has little to do with the land of Asterix and McDo (adding Dijon mustard doesn't help much, however good it tastes). Instead, it is one of the few remaining carryovers from the Golden Age of American sandwiches -- the perfect synthesis of culinary conservatism and American populism.

Or, put another way, fuck wraps.

After the jump, more Harvard sammiches...

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Pull up a chair, tuck in a napkin, it's time to lose our shit over sandwiches again. Today's installment is from Charlie Niesenbaum, the Cornell Daily Sun's official snack food columnist (sometimes we really, really love college papers) whose work just may surpass genius. Let us know what Stuff Between Bread we should get after next.

When it comes to sandwich culture, Cornell has a lot to offer. On-Campus Dining tries its best with purveyors such as Cascadeli, Mac's, Trillium and Bear Nasties. However, there can only be one true champ, only one that is truly "tasty-ass." That sandwich is the Hot Truck's Triple Suicide. 

For those who don't know, Hot Truck is the West Campus sandwich institution founded in 1960 that brought late night delicious to Cornell and invented French bread pizza. Just to clarify, this isn't fifth grade Friday school lunch, this is a one-third loaf of French bread loaded with cheese and sauce and baked fresh in the oven. How good are these sandwiches? When things get crazy at the Hot Truck wait times can stretch over an hour. At night. In sub-freezing temperatures. And in the snow. These sandwiches are that good.

The rest of the Hot Truck Menu pulls no punches with inventive items like the Krazy Korean, Mr. Pink, Ho-Ho, Re-Re and Flaming Turkey Bone (which the menu describes as containing "no actual flames, turkey or bones"). The Triple Suicide reigns over all of them.

According to the menu, the T-Sui comes with tomato sauce, mushrooms, sausage, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese and six meatballs. What the menu cannot describe is exactly how you feel after cramming one of these down after a typical night on the town. Every year more than one freshman makes the mistake of trying to scarf a whole T-Sui too quickly after a night of drinking. That is a mistake you make exactly once. But this meat monster doesn't like to be kept waiting either. Because of the tons of sauce, cheese and oil on the fresh toasted bread, Hot Truck subs don't keep well. My advice is, order the numerically challenged Half Triple-Suicide.

Besides our recent stint as a dream College in the classic 2004 teen comedy "The Perfect Score", Cornell isn't known for much besides suicide. So, if you are ever stopping by Cornell with two friends, try our Triple Suicide. It's to die for.

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Surviving college means surviving, among other things, your diet. You may fancy yourself a high-achieving, independent adult, but chances are you're still eating Easy Mac five nights out of finals week. We wouldn't have it any other way: nutritionally bankrupt, character rich. Freshman roommates bond over illegally boiled ramen; library insomniacs bring each other bacon-egg-and-cheese bagels. Comfort fuel.

We are, you can tell, a little cockeyed about food* -- food, that is, made delicious by circumstance as much as ingredient. Get ready for some enthusiasm: introducing Tasty-Ass Sandwiches of the Ivy League, an occasional series that will rhapsodize about the culinary genre -- stuff between bread -- that feeds us best. Either you understand this feature or you don't. First up: Columbia's Spicy Special.

[Ed.: Thanks is owed Armin Rosen, Columbia '10, for penning an impeccable Spicy tribute last week that gave us an excuse to do this. Go read it after this, it's superior.] 

We had our first Spicy at 2 or 3 in the morning on a Wednesday, having been bodily carried halfway to the Crack Deli on 109th Street by an incredulous, evangelical hockey player. No sandwich was as good as he was promising, especially not this meager apportionment of turkey on what had to be two-day-old bread, sold for three dollars and fifty cents at an establishment we knew primarily as a clutch spot for looseys.

But then we peeled the foil back and bit, finding Christ, and/or heroin, in a Baghdad mouthful. (Hot, and explosive.) It was Nov. 11, 2004 and now it was our turn to be incredulous, as we worked our dropped jaw up and down, discovering the immaculate layering of just enough cajun turkey, pepper jack cheese, L, T, and an indeterminate brand of deli mayo in a flattened, toasted hero. It lasted the exact duration of the walk home. It was perfection. Had the owner put the crack in the sandwich?

It's difficult to explain the Spicy Special to the uninitiated. Is it spicy? Yes, a little. Is it special? How dare you. As Armin wrote, a Spicy is a night out at Columbia; sold at the deli right down from upperclass bar 1020, forgoing one at the end of the night just isn't thinkable. Look, all we know is that we tend to get overexcited -- can you tell? -- about things like this, and yet despite our incessant hyping of the Spicy to friends and professors, the sammich still exceeds expectations. Stretches of Amsterdam Avenue can sound like a gonzo after last call, as the sloshed comment unsubtly on their Spicies on the walk home. Once we gave a grown man a bite and he hugged us. Bridging the gulfs between jock and hipster, cokehead and study rat, the Spicy is the undisputed sandwich of Columbia University.

We'll confess, this series is only half-baked; we know of excellent 'wichcraft at Penn, Princeton, Harvard and Yale, but need taste buds on the ground at Brown, Cornell and Dartmouth. If you're a student at the latter set, and you feel us on this, get in touch. Club Sandwich begins now.

*(A couple years ago, half of us made the other go a week without paying for food, subsisting only on club-meeting pizza and dining-dollar benevolence. He gained weight.)