Sosuke's Ham Sandwich

Serve when

Serve it simple — soft bread, butter, a thick slice of ham — the sandwich that first teaches Ponyo she is helplessly, joyfully in love with ham.

In the movie

Theatrical

00:14:04 In the car, Lisa hands Sosuke a sandwich; he offers Ponyo the bread, but she turns up her nose and lunges for the ham instead, snatching it like a sea otter. Ponyo's love of ham — first sparked here — becomes a running emblem of her delight in the human world.

It's a tiny moment, but it's pure characterization: Ponyo, still half-fish, rejecting the bread and going straight for the ham is the film telling us she's already reaching for the human world with both hands (and mouth). Her ham obsession is joy incarnate — the simplest possible symbol of wanting to be alive, and here, in a car, on an ordinary day.

Ingredients

2 slices soft white bread
Butter
1-2 thick slices of good ham (the star — Ponyo would accept nothing less)
A leaf of lettuce, optional (Ponyo would remove it)

Method

Butter the bread generously.
Lay in the thick slices of ham — this is a ham sandwich that happens to have bread, not the other way around.
Add lettuce if you must, close it up, and cut in half.
Serve. Guard the ham from anyone with fish-like reflexes.