“A FEDERAL FOOD FIGHT? HOW VERY AMERICAN.”

A COUNCIL DISPATCH — FROM OUR EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT:

Mrs. Begonia Contretemp, Brussels Bureau (Formerly of the Gist & Tangent Parisian Satellite)

Darlings,

It was perhaps inevitable.

A nation built on the noble sandwich—peanut buttered, footlonged, freedom-fried—has at last entered its culinary Waco moment. This week in Washington, a Justice Department contract employee was fired (with relish, I presume) after hurling a sub-style sandwich at a federal officer during what appears to have been a most uncivil meal break.

The man, of middling rank and condimental courage, was promptly dismissed and charged with felony assault. So far, so predictable.

But then, like a drizzle of ranch on escargot, entered Attorney General Pam Bondi.

With full prosecutorial poise, she declared to the cameras:

“If you touch any law enforcement officer, we will come after you.

I just learned that this defendant worked at the Department of Justice — NO LONGER.

Not only is he FIRED, he has been charged with a felony.

This is an example of the Deep State we have been up against for seven months as we work to refocus DOJ.

You will NOT work in this administration while disrespecting our government and law enforcement.”

And there it was:

The Deep State, delivered on a hoagie roll.

Ah, America. You do not disappoint.

First Watergate. Now Paninigate.

Over here, we call that l’apéritif politique—when a small bite pretends to be the main course.

Naturally, this sort of culinary brinkmanship did not go unnoticed at the Council. One doesn’t weaponize a hero sandwich without us activating our own food-forward protocols. And so, beneath the warm lamplight of The Gist & Tangent Pub, preparations began.

It’s a quieter form of resistance, yes—but make no mistake: when the Council retaliates, it’s always well-seasoned.

Of course, we Continentals know a thing or two about the realpolitik of cuisine. Permit me a brief cheese interlude.

In his now-scandalous book The Psychogeography and Realpolitik of Cheese, our own Council luminary John St. Evola recounts a deliciously undiplomatic incident: the time Fidel Castro nearly ruptured relations with France over Camembert.¹

Yes, truly.

Castro, with his dairy-driven obsession and a genetically convenient lactose tolerance, urged visiting French agronomist André Voisin to admit that Cuba’s new “revolutionary Camembert” surpassed France’s finest. The Frenchman demurred. Castro insisted. Voisin finally exploded:

“Better? Never!”

Then, in a moment of Gallic flair, he plucked a cigar from Castro’s pocket and replied:

“Will you agree that there is a better cigar in the world than this?

You can’t beat tradition. My cheese and your cigars have centuries behind them.”

Tense standoff. Dairy diplomacy.

Nobody threw anything.

Very civilized.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Pam Bondi is crying “Deep State” over flying lunchmeat. I ask you—where is your Camembert?

And let us not forget the Balkan delicatessen that launched a world war.

It was a sandwich that changed the world.

On June 28, 1914, after a failed attempt to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a disillusioned, overlooked, and hungry young assassin—Gavrilo Princip—stopped for a bite at a café in Sarajevo. By chance, the Archduke’s motorcade took a wrong turn and passed directly in front of him. Princip stepped outside, saw his target again, and seized the moment. Two bullets later, Europe was on fire.

Thus, one of history’s deadliest conflicts was ignited—not by grand strategy, but by hunger and coincidence.

So you see, dears, sandwiches do matter.

But not every hoagie is history.

Not every sub is sabotage.

The Council recommends:

A Field Index of Edible Geopolitics

A review of Ice Cream as Identity Politics, in light of Ms. Sydney Sweeney’s recent Baskin-Robbins campaign (her performance, like the product, was pastel and perfunctory)

And, most pressingly, a return to proportion—both in seasoning and in statecraft

Until then, I remain, as ever,

Disgusted, amused, and faintly hungry—

Mrs. Begonia Contretemp

European Correspondent from the Nouvelle Vague Zwischenschaft (NVZ)

Council-of-Concerned-Conservationists

¹ See The Psychogeography and Realpolitik of Cheese, Ch. 7: Camembert and the Commissar; also summarized in War is Boring, Medium, 2020.