The hottest thing in sandwiches

The hot open-faced sandwich just might be the anti-sandwich. You can't pack it in a lunchbox and you can't eat it on the run. In fact, most hot open-faced sandwiches are so messy they require a knife and fork and a seat at the table.

Or a stool at the counter.

These typically American sandwiches are hard to find now. Some diners offer them, as do dining rooms with old-fashioned menus. But in today's stylish restaurants, a sandwich based on leftovers doesn't carry much cache.

The sandwich classic is offered at Deluxe Town Diner in Watertown, where owner Don Levy has both hot meatloaf and hot turkey. In fact, he sells enough hot turkey sandwiches to roast a bird every day. The Deluxe version might be made with toasted Nashoba Brook Bakery bread and is topped with thick slices of turkey and gravy. Levy used to offer the popular item as a closed sandwich bathed in gravy, but he recently changed it to open-faced, with small sides of stuffing and cranberry sauce .

"It's a steady seller all the time," he says, "but it does especially well around Thanksgiving."

The Deluxe specialty has the feel of a holiday meal, and that's the point of hot open-faced sandwiches. They're a good way to transform leftover turkey -- or other holiday roasts -- into a soothing repast. It's almost as quick to make as a cold sandwich, but the hot version is homey and more substantial.

Sauce or gravy makes all the difference.

That's certainly the case with the Hot Brown, an open-faced turkey and bacon sandwich invented in 1926 by chef Fred Schmidt of Louisville's Brown Hotel as a treat after an evening of dancing. According to the hotel's history, more than 1,000 guests would attend these soirees. Schmidt's answer to the late-night kitchen rush combined ingredients readily at hand and easy to assemble: toast, roast turkey, Mornay sauce, and bacon strips.

Modern chefs haven't fiddled with the recipe. Joe Castro, who became executive chef at the Brown Hotel in 1992, thinks the dish has lasted because "it was the right sandwich at the right time. People would eat it after dances or as a light meal before going to the track. It evokes fond memories."

Castro estimates that about a third of Louisville's restaurants offer a version of the Hot Brown. His own kitchen serves about 30 a day for breakfast or lunch in the hotel's casual restaurant. "You can't go wrong if you put these ingredients together," he says.

The Hot Brown is also popular as brunch in Louisville homes. The restaurant serves the sandwich in a small skillet-shaped ceramic casserole, but home cooks use gratin dishes that can stand up to the heat of a broiler so the top browns before serving.

Leftover turkey can also find a home in the "horseshoe," the signature sandwich of Springfield, Ill. "There's no protein in any form you can't use in a horseshoe," says Sharon Johnson of the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau. "The original used ham, which gave the sandwich its name, because that's the shape of a ham slice cut around the bone. Nowadays, hamburger is popular, also buffalo chicken, and bacon and egg. My husband makes it for me with veggie burgers."

Born in the same era as the Hot Brown, the horseshoe is attributed to the now-defunct Leland Hotel in Springfield, which in 1928 began serving plates of toast, meat, and cheese sauce smothered in french fries. Today, virtually every eatery in Springfield sells a version, but Hallie Pierceall, owner of D'Arcy's Pint, just might be the queen. "Normally we sell between 500 and 700 a day," says Pierceall, whose restaurant seats 175. "The horseshoe and the pony shoe -- that's a smaller version -- make up 60 percent of our sales."

Her sandwich begins with two pieces of "Texas" toast (that means extra thick, pardner) on a 1-foot oval platter. They're covered with meat, then enough cheese sauce to lap at the rim of the dish. Shoestring fries go on top. Made with a burger, the sandwich transforms a classic fast-food meal. The pony shoe is roughly half the size, served on a 9-inch plate.

Pierceall is cagy about the cheese sauce. "Everybody has their secret sauce," she says, "with their own spices and seasonings. Some people use beer, some don't. We like to use white cheese and keep the spicing mild. You don't want to get in the way of the meat."

Around Thanksgiving, she offers a special turkey horseshoe with slabs of dressing in place of the toast. Turkey gravy or the cheese sauce goes on top. Then the fries, of course.

What would the Pilgrims have thought?