Americans can argue long and hard over the relative merits of the sandwiches created in their hometowns. The one unarguable point is the broad diversity of these creations. Chicago is known for its Italian beef sandwiches, Milwaukee for bratwurst, Philadelphia for its cheesesteak, and Los Angeles for the French dip, which, according to legend, was created by accident. None, it is safe to say, were created for the calorie-conscious diner.

Go to any city in America, large or small, talk to residents there, and I am sure you will find two things to be true. One, they have a sandwich that they'll tell you they invented that has no equal in America, and, two, they're willing to argue for hours with their friends and neighbors about who makes the best version of that sandwich.

All over this country there are sandwiches that have come to be identified with each city as much or more than their sports teams.

Excessive But Delicious

The Italian Beef Sandwich has been a Chicago staple for 66 years. At places like Mr. Beef and Al's, they take thin slices of slow-cooked roast beef sopped in pan juices loaded up with garlic, pile them into an oblong sandwich roll, and garnish them with either sweet peppers or giardinera, a hot pickle relish. Many Windy City residents add a length of sweet Italian sausage to their Italian beef sandwiches, creating what Chicagoans call a combo. It sounds excessive, and it might very well be, but it sure is delicious.

Ask any gas station attendant in Sheboygan or Milwaukee—two cities north of Chicago in the state of Wisconsin—what to eat for lunch, and I guarantee nine out of ten of them will say a "brat" (pronounced "brot") or bratwurst sandwich. The best ones are grilled over charcoal until their casings are about to burst forth with sausage drippings, and then inserted into a not so hard roll.

In Des Moines, Iowa, where they raise a whole lot of hogs, the pork tenderloin sandwich is the lunch of choice at a place like Smitty's out by the airport. It's pork tenderloin that's been pounded, flattened, and deep-fried. It looks like an oddly shaped, oversized frisbee that overwhelms the hamburger bun it's sheathed in, especially when it's topped with lettuce, tomato, and slathered with mayo and/or mustard.

Four hours away from Des Moines, in Kansas City, smoked beef brisket sandwiches rule the roost. Slices of the lovely, smoky, tender meat are piled high between two slices of commercial white bread. A great smoked beef brisket sandwich needs no sauce in my humble opinion, but Kansas Citians will debate the merits of both the brisket and the barbecue sauce at places like Gate's, LC's, and Oklahoma Joe's.

In New York, people will argue about who makes the best pastrami or corned beef sandwich for hours, even days, without resolution. This is not just a recent phenomenon, however. Ever since Jewish Rumanian immigrants started selling smoked and cured meats out of butcher shops on the city's Lower East Side at the turn of the last century, I am certain that heated discussions took place trying to determine who makes the best. These days the arguments revolve around Katz's (just about the last deli left on the Lower East Side), the Carnegie Deli, the Second Avenue Deli in the East Village, or Artie's on the Upper West Side.

The Fried Clam

In Boston, the city folks have appropriated the fried clam roll from the neighboring town of Essex. For the fried clam roll, sweet, full-bellied clams are dipped in batter and thrown into the deep fryer. A few minutes later they're laid into a top-loaded hot dog bun with some tartar sauce and a slice of lemon on the side. Though the fried clam was purportedly invented by Lawrence Dexter Woodman in Essex, Massachusetts, on July 3, 1916, restaurants in Boston like Summer Shack and Kingfisher's definitely do this fabulous sandwich justice.

In Philadelphia the sandwich arguments revolve around the cheesesteak. Slices of top round so thin you can see through them are cooked on a very hot grill. At the very end of a very short cooking process (less than two minutes) cheese is added to the meat, either American, provolone, or for the most tradition-minded, Cheese Whiz. This lovely, unholy mess is then inserted into a hero roll that should be crunchy and crispy enough to absorb the meat juices and cheesy goop without falling apart, and topped with grilled onions. Gino's, Jim's, Pat's, and Tony Luke's all make the claim of cheesesteak superiority. In the name of research, I have sampled all four of them in a single outing. Alas, I am still on the fence as to who makes the best.

In North Carolina pork is king, cooked and smoked in a pit over low heat for hours until the sweet, tender meat can either be pulled apart into porcine shards without the benefit of a knife, or chopped fine with bits of golden brown pig skin thrown in for good measure. In the eastern part of the state, the coastal plain, in small cities like Wilson, they cook the whole hog (preferably using only wood as the fuel) at places like Mitchell's, chop it up, and serve it on a hamburger bun with finely diced cole slaw. The barbecue sauce served in eastern North Carolina is tomato-based. In the western half of the state, the Piedmont, in cities like Lexington, such as at Lexington Barbecue No. 1, they cook only the shoulder (again over wood), chop it up, and serve it on those same hamburger buns with cole slaw. Here the sauce is vinegar-based. Asking a North Carolinian from either side of the state about the barbecue served on the other side will surely generate a derisive snort. Me, I'm an equal-opportunity North Carolina barbecue lover.

In Miami, home to hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans, the Cuban sandwich reigns supreme. Slices of ham, roast pork, and swiss cheese are put in a cottony hero roll along with slices of pickle, mustard, and garlic sauce. Then the concoction is placed in a sandwich press until the cheese is melted and the roll is all toasty and crisp. Go anywhere in Miami, from trendy South Beach to Calle Ocho (Eighth Street), the heart of the Cuban community there, and you'll find dozens of places like Versailles serving this staple.

Feeding Strikers

In New Orleans the po-boy and the muffaletta battle for sandwich supremacy. According to John T. Edge in Southern Belly, his definitive guide to Southern food, the po-boy as we know it was born when sandwich shop owners Bennie and Clovis Martin fed striking local streetcar workers sandwiches for free, hailing each one, "Here comes another poor boy." As Edge notes, they were probably not the first people to serve slices of roast beef or ham stuffed inside a loaf of French bread, but they were the most likely to coin the name. Nowadays, New Orleans po-boy makers put everything from oysters, shrimp, soft-shell crabs, and duck inside their creations at estimable places like Casamento's, Uglesich's, Parasol's, Mandina's, and Mother's.

The muffaletta is another story entirely. It gets its name from a round, seeded Sicilian loaf of bread, which is stuffed with ham, salami, mortadella, provolone, and olives laden with enough garlic to ward off evil spirits for decades. It's still served where it was invented around 1906, at the Central Grocery on the edge of the French Quarter, as well as its Decatur Street neighbor, The Progress Grocery. Which is better? Get half a muffaletta from each and conduct your own taste test. If you insist on sitting down to eat your muffaletta, head to the Napoleon House.

In Louisville, Kentucky, you can enjoy a hot brown sandwich where it was invented, at the Brown Hotel's J. Graham's Restaurant. According to an oral history of the hotel, sometime in the late 1920's the chef at the hotel, Fred K. Schmidt, came up with an idea for a turkey sandwich with Mornay sauce, bacon, and pimentos that he would put under a broiler. The result is a divine molten combination that's so good any city would be proud to call its own.

In Los Angeles, a downtown Los Angeles sandwich shop, Phillippe's, claims to have invented the French dip sandwich. According to Jane and Michael Stern, authors of Roadfood, a guide to some 500 eateries across the United States, a counterman accidentally dropped a sliced roll into beef gravy while making a sandwich for a customer in a hurry. Not wanting to wait for the carver to make another sandwich, said customer took the sandwich "wet."

These days Philippe's makes "wet" sandwiches with your choice of beef, lamb, ham, pork, or turkey. They'll even double-dip the sandwiches if you ask. That way you're guaranteed a moist sandwich and a cholesterol count worthy of a visit to a cardiologist.