In a 1915 essay in a trade journal encouraging candy store owners to broaden their offerings with “dainty, quick lunch” options, the writer Frank B. Kahn recommended adding a “Thanksgiving Sandwich special” of turkey meat, cranberry sauce and mayonnaise to menus. “Be sure this is seasoned right,” he wrote, “and advertise well.”
It’s doubtful Mr. Kahn could have ever imagined the Wawa Gobbler, a seasonal hoagie available at Wawa convenience stores, which dot the East Coast from Pennsylvania to Florida.
Far from dainty, this hoagie is a full Thanksgiving meal stuffed into a soft roll: tender pieces of turkey topped with herby stuffing, fuchsia cranberry sauce and a glut of tawny gravy that soaks and slicks the bread, encouraging it to congeal into one, satisfying mess of a sandwich. (The sandwich contents are also available as a bowl, over a bed of mashed potatoes.)
Whether you call it a gobbler, a pilgrim (as it’s known in New England, where it’s a common sight on restaurant menus) or just a leftovers sandwich, the tradition of piling Thanksgiving scraps onto bread has been chronicled in books and newspapers since the early 20th century, and may stretch back earlier.
The magic of the sandwich lies in how it offers a bit of portable nostalgia, thanks to the inclusion of “a specific set of standard holiday foods,” said Barry W. Enderwick, the creator of the Sandwiches of History TikTok and Instagram accounts, and the author of a new cookbook of the same name. Sure, variations exist, like mashed sweet potatoes in place of white potatoes, or a slice of gravy-soaked bread à la “the Moist Maker” popularized by the TV show “Friends,” but the main components are often untouched. “People have strong opinions about it,” Mr. Enderwick said. “People are invested in what they’ve come to understand it to be and they go to bat for it.”
More and more chains, like Firehouse Subs and Earl of Sandwich, are offering their takes on the leftovers sandwich weeks, sometimes months, before the holiday season even begins. Publix, the Florida-based supermarket chain, introduced its Turkey Cranberry Holiday Sub in 2020 with sliced deli turkey, cranberry-orange relish, bacon and Gruyère. (The Thanksgiving sandwich has even made it to the frozen food aisle of the supermarket with DiGiorno’s Thanksgiving pizza, featuring roasted turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans and cranberries, available at Kroger stores through Nov. 28. It sold out nationwide last year.)
At Lenwich, the sandwich chain with locations in Manhattan and South Korea, the hot turkey sandwich with stuffing, gravy and thick slices of jellied cranberry sauce has been on the menu since 1989, when the chain first opened. A representative estimated that tens of thousands of the sandwiches are sold each holiday season across 18 Lenwich locations.
But the Wawa Gobbler may be king of them all. Introduced in 2005, the sandwich has a cult following, with fans seeing its arrival at their local Wawa as the official harbinger of the holiday season. Bright signs hanging at Wawa stores declare that “the Gobbler is back.”
On Sept. 23, the day the sandwich arrived this year, a user on the Wawa subreddit who said they had fallen in love with it and waited for its return wished everyone a “Happy gobbler day!” On a gobbler-related Wawa Instagram post featuring Jason and Kylie Kelce, a commenter lamented not having the sandwich in the midst of a medical emergency: “I’m in the hospital and all I want is the gobbler.”
Calling the sandwich a “fan favorite and tradition for many,” Lori Bruce, a senior media relations manager at Wawa, said the Pennsylvania-based chain sells more than 2 million Gobbler hoagies and bowls annually at its 1,050 locations.
Some local sandwich shops have found that the gobbler’s appeal goes beyond the holidays, adding the item to their menu year round. Last year, when a customer failed to pick up a Thanksgiving order of a whole roasted turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce, Neamet Elsayed, the owner of the Little Grocery in Hoboken, N.J., decided to add a Thanksgiving-inspired turkey sandwich on a sesame baguette to the menu. It was a hit.
“Our customers just loved it, so we added it to the menu,” he said. Today it’s one the restaurant’s best sellers, requiring Mr. Elsayed and the team to roast multiple turkeys a week to keep up with demand.
He thinks we’ll only see more gobbler variations in the years ahead. “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if McDonald’s started selling these turkey sandwiches,” he said.
Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.
The post The Triumph of the Gobbler Sandwich appeared first on New York Times.
