Whether for business or pleasure, travel is an opportunity to discover the flavors of different places; and there is no food category that fills the bill better than sandwiches. Nearly every city and region in America has a signature sandwich, from a knife-and-fork Hot Brown (turkey, melted cheese and bacon) presented in a fine Louisville hotel to a cool lobster roll at a rickety wood picnic table overlooking Casco Bay in Portland, Maine. Whether the meal you seek is a casual business lunch or a personal get-away-from-it-all respite, consider these blue-ribbon sandwiches for a memorable taste of the nation.

Los Angeles: French Dip

Once unique to Los Angeles but now known far and wide, the French Dip as served at Philippe the Original (which claims to have invented it in 1918) is warm, sliced roast beef bunned in a long roll, dressed with ferociously hot mustard and sopped with the natural gravy known as au jus. Lamb, chicken and pork are alternate fillings, and the price of a cup of coffee at Philippe’s remains nine cents. Philippe the Original: 1001 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA. 213-628-3781

New Orleans: Muffaletta

Salami, mortadella, capicola and provolone, along with a thick layer of garlicky chopped olive salad, are piled into a big, sideways-sliced round loaf that is enough sandwich for two. Some restaurants offer it heated, and there are even vegetarian versions made with roasted vegetables. But the classic is an Italian bomb — a powerful taste of the contribution made by Italian cooks to the Creole repertoire. When in New Orleans, check out Central Grocery for the best Muffaletta in town. Central Grocery: 923 Decatur St., New Orleans, LA. 504-523‑1620

Memphis: Pig Sandwich

A pig sandwich isn’t just barbecued pork on a bun. It is pork, chopped or pulled, bathed in sauce and heaped with cole slaw, a yin-yang balance of hot and cool, meat and vegetable. The combo is popular now throughout the Mid-South, but nowhere better than in Memphis, where it was invented in the 1920s by Leonard Heuberger of Leonard’s Pit Barbecue. Leonard’s Pit Barbeque: 5465 Fox Plaza Dr., Memphis, TN. 901-360-1963

Chicago: Italian Beef

Italian beef is the king of street food in Chicago, especially at Al’s #1 Italian Beef. Vaguely similar to a Philadelphia cheese steak (but without the cheese), it is a shaft of muscular bread filled with thin-sliced beef in garlicky natural gravy. Most joints that serve Italian beef provide a chest-high counter where customers unwrap the butcher-paper serving shroud and eat standing up with neckties slung over the shoulder to avoid gravy spots. Al’s #1 Italian Beef: 1079 W. Taylor St., Chicago, IL. 312-226-4017

Tampa: Cuban

A perfect storm of multiple ingredients, the classic Cuban sandwich combines roast pork chunks, sliced ham, at least one kind of cheese, puckery pickle slices, mustard and mayo all packed into a torpedo of crusty bread. The sandwich would fall to pieces as constructed, but it attains poise in a hot plancha, the Spanish toaster that is basically a toothless waffle iron. The heavy top of the plancha presses down on the assembled sandwich, causing all the different flavor notes to bond together as one resounding chord inside the crisped loaf. In Tampa, check out Carmine’s Seventh Avenue. Carmine’s Seventh Avenue: 1802 E. 7th Ave., Tampa, FL. 813-248-3834

New York: Pastrami

Pastrami is available in delis everywhere, but few places can compare to the real deal in New York, where the meat is cured and smoked to voluptuous spiciness and piled impossibly high on hard-crusted rye bread. New York has many Jewish delis that do it right. The best of them is Katz’s, a Lower East Side landmark where the meat is cut by hand as you watch. Each brick-red, glistening moist hunk is rimmed black with pickling spices, redolent of garlic and smoke. Katz’s: 205 E. Houston St., New York, NY. 212-254-2246