The Underground Gourmet expects nothing less than divine sandwich inspiration from Gabrielle Hamilton at Prune. After all, this is the woman who introduced Triscuits with sardines and Dijon mustard to fine dining — to say nothing of a brunch that's like a cross between Barney Greengrass and H.R. Pufnstuf. Now Hamilton has added a lunch menu to her superb repertoire, and the centerpiece is a bacon-and-marmalade-on-pumpernickel sandwich. Hamilton says it's an old suburban-Jersey-family favorite, but its roots may in fact be British — something an eccentric grouse hunter might bring along with him for sustenance on the shoot.

The key to making a good bacon-and-marmalade sandwich, it can now be revealed, is to spread the top piece of the grilled bread lavishly with butter and orange marmalade so that it trickles down, effectively coating and glazing the hot bacon as if it had been dragged through a car wash equipped with a marmalade spray gun.

The winning result is a veritable orgy of sweet, salty, and slightly rye-flour-sour flavors as well as a nice crunchy texture, making it unquestionably the best — if perhaps the only — bacon-and-marmalade (on pumpernickel) sandwich in town.

— Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld