Sandwich Monday: The Ignatius R : The Salt For this week's Sandwich Monday, we brave the record-breakingly cold streets of Chicago to try the Ignatius R, a record-breakingly enormous sandwich from Jerry's Sandwiches. It's a potato bun wrapped around pretty much everything you can imagine.

Sandwich Monday: The Ignatius R

No mouths were harmed in the eating of this sandwich. Except Eva's — she wants Worker's Comp for a bad case of Sandwich Jaw. NPR hide caption

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No mouths were harmed in the eating of this sandwich. Except Eva's — she wants Worker's Comp for a bad case of Sandwich Jaw.

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It's -16 degrees today here in Chicago, which for many of us has triggered hibernation mode. Fortunately the great Jerry's Sandwiches has created the Ignatius R., with enough calories to get us to the end of winter, which we expect to occur sometime in August.

The ingredient list: fried chicken, cold hickory-smoked sirloin, applewood bacon, fresh mozzarella, lettuce, Carolina vinegar, fried shrimp, fried green tomato, mortadella, country ham, pickled okra, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and Southwest mayo on a potato bun.

Ian: I couldn't get through that whole ingredient list, but I ate the Clif's Notes.

Eva: These are all the things Vogue magazine advised me to eat as part of my New Year's diet!

Eva is not using this as her new profile pic, but the Ignatius R is definitely posting it on SandwichBook. NPR hide caption

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Eva is not using this as her new profile pic, but the Ignatius R is definitely posting it on SandwichBook.

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Ian: I'm just glad to be sticking my tongue to something it doesn't freeze to.

Miles: And if we get cold, it's nice to know we have a warm sandwich we could live inside.

Robert is forced to use the unorthodox "Skokie Spiral Grip." NPR hide caption

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Robert is forced to use the unorthodox "Skokie Spiral Grip."

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Eva: Is that a fried egg?

Robert: This sandwich is like an ever-opening flower, constantly revealing things you didn't know were there.

Miles: Like if Georgia O'Keefe used meat instead of paint.

Ian: It is like an archaeological dig. I just found a ham arrowhead.

Miles: We finally have an answer to that old joke, "Why did six chickens, three pigs, and a cow cross the road?"

Ian: You do kind of get the sense this is what would have happened on Day 38 of Noah's Ark.

Eating the Ignatius R takes strong arms and bad judgment, one of which Ian has. NPR hide caption

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Eating the Ignatius R takes strong arms and bad judgment, one of which Ian has.

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Robert: Wow, sea animals, land animals and all this other stuff. It's like Surf, Turf and Burf.

Miles: The Weather Channel is advising Chicagoans to stay inside, which is fortunate, as I can no longer fit through my door.

Eva: I can use my ice scraper to get all this food off my face.

Ian: In the time we've been eating this, my long johns turned to wide johns.

[The verdict: as Robert said, greater even than the sum of its parts. A delicious, though inedibly tall, sandwich.]