SUMMERTIME : REVIEW : A Culinary Art Form : Imaginative, savory variations on a simple theme: the sandwich.

Generations would have starved were it not for the humble sandwich, two pieces of bread thrown together with whatever we found to stick in between.

Late 20th-Century America has elevated the sandwich to an art form. It is hard to believe the rest of the world once turned up a collective snoot at the concept.

Sandwiches today represent many countries and cultures--France, Italy, even China. I’ve been busy eating sandwiches in various parts of the San Fernando Valley and have come up with 10 personal favorites.

There are too many sandwich shops and restaurants out there for me to pronounce this a 10 best list, but rest assured that all these candidates, in their individual ways, are worth a detour. If you have favorites of your own, please drop me a line. I’m always ready to eat another good sandwich.

1. THE BURGER

Hamburgers are without a doubt our most popular sandwich. The Valley is rich in terrific burgers: In-N-Out Burger (with a handful of Valley locations); any number of small neighborhood stands; and upscale, high-priced burgers to be had in such tony restaurants as Bistro Garden at Coldwater.

To join this august company, I’m nominating the original oak-wood grilled burger at the wonderful Crocodile Cafe, available in Glendale and now in the chain’s new Burbank store. This is a thick (one-third of a pound), smoky burger perfumed with hardwood, served on a Good Stuff sesame-seed bun. Have it topped with Cheddar cheese and grilled onions at no extra charge. It’s a juicy, complex burger, and it comes with great curly French fries. Further, the cheery, faintly southwestern-themed Crocodile Cafe is a pleasant place to dine.

Crocodile Cafe, 626 N. Central Ave., Glendale, (818) 241-1114, also 201 N. San Fernando Blvd., Burbank, (818) 843-7999. Oakwood burger, 5.95.

2. THE TORTA

The modest Dos Arbolitos, a Mexican food fest crammed into what looks no bigger than a converted Fotomat, may be the best place in the Valley to eat anything Mexican. Tortas is Mexican Spanish for sandwiches, in this case overstuffed slices of puffy, doughy grilled Mexican bollilos (rolls). They are superb, and there is no better sandwich value between here and Veracruz.

The eccentric chef Yayo will make you any type of torta you can dream up, but my runaway favorite is torta de barbacoa (pit barbecue)--smoked, spiced, shredded pork, finished on a spit. This sandwich has lots of chopped cilantro, cabbage, tomatoes and onions to fill it out, and the spicy sauce literally runs out the sides as you bite in. If you want to turn up the heat, ask the waitress for a cupful of the chef’s fiery, chunky salsa, the Valley’s most intense.

Dos Arbolitos, 16208 Parthenia St., North Hills, (818) 891-6661. Torta de barbacoa, $3.

3. THE FALAFEL

Falafel is the most popular snack food in the Middle East, jammed with spiced, deep-fried balls of mashed garbanzo beans, parsley and other spices. In Israel, falafel are nothing short of a national pastime, eaten with tahini (sesame sauce) inside steamy hot pockets of pita bread.

Shula Amrani is chief cook at Tiberias, our top Israeli restaurant, and she serves the best falafel I know of. You’ll get four perfectly golden and crisp orbs inside a pita pocket with salad and tahini. But if you ask her to add a little of her khouk (a grainy red hot sauce), the sandwich takes on added complexity. Tiberias has dark, smoky homemade pickles, briny, crisp one,as well as wonderful preserved turnips, beet pink with a mild, bitter aftertaste. Come for lunch, by the way, if you want this particular sandwich. The restaurant does not serve it during the evening.

Tiberias, 18046 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 343-3705. Falafel sandwich, $2.95.

4. THE BRISKET

Barbecue in Texas is synonymous with beef brisket, tender, flaky meat slow smoked over hickory wood and flavored with a hot, sweet sauce redolent of cumin. At the wood and vinyl truck stop Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler Texas BBQ, the Valley’s best place for smoked meat of any kind, brisket is about the only sandwich they don’t have on their menu. Here’s how to do it:

For $8, order the a la carte brisket, an enormous plate of the stuff served only with barbecue sauce. This is soft, tender brisket that falls apart when poked, and it is deliciously smoky and herbal. Then simply ask for a side of the house bread, a yeasty country white bread served in small double loaves, and put the sandwich together yourself. It’s almost heaven, even if the two house barbecue sauces, mild and hot, are on the tame side. Side dishes like baked beans and potato salad are good, too, so you may just want to go ahead and order a brisket dinner for $10.95.

Dr. Hogly Wogly’s Tyler Texas BBQ, 8136 Sepulveda Blvd., Van Nuys, (818) 782-2480. A la carte brisket, $8.

5. THE BLT

One of my favorite sandwiches growing up was a BLT, something most of us have made at home at one time or another.

Encino’s Daily Grill serves a classic version of this homey sandwich, and it is as good as any I’ve tried. First off, the sandwich comes on enormous hunks of sourdough bread (you can substitute that for rye or white on request) baked for the restaurant by Pioneer Boulangerie of Santa Monica. A half-pound of crisp bacon must be in this sandwich, piled high with fresh iceberg lettuce, snappy slices of red tomato and a good bit of eggy mayonnaise.

Daily Grill, 16101 Ventura Blvd . , Encino, (818) 986-4111. BLT, $6.95.

6. THE MUSHROOM

I’ve often said that Studio City’s Pinot Bistro and chef Octavio Becerra are two of the best things to happen to this area in recent years, and I stick by it. Whenever this restaurant creates a sandwich, expect something special.

The lunch menu changes weekly at Pinot. Look at the insert toward the bottom, and you will see something the restaurant calls its “metamorphosis menu,” which contains, among other things, a noodle, fish and sandwich of the week. The sandwich might be anything--smoked salmon with sun-dried tomatoes, prosciutto with goat cheese, whatever Becerra and his brigade dream up. But if you are lucky, you’ll come the week he is doing one with those steaklike Portobello mushrooms. They are fabulous.

This is an opulent sandwich, the sort of thing that demands a flute of champagne or perhaps an earthy red wine to wash it down. Meaty slices of Portobello mushrooms come piled on a fresh, domed rosemary bun accompanied by grilled red onion, Valley greens and a rich, roasted garlic mayonnaise.

Pinot Bistro, 12969 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, (818) 990-0500, Pinot sandwich, $11.50.

7. THE COMBINATION

Factor’s Famous Deli in Encino is a breezy, movie-star-themed clone of the original Factor’s on West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. Until Art’s reopens, it’s where you’ll find me whenever I’m in the mood for corned beef or pastrami.

You can have your corned beef and eat it too, if you have the stomach to order one of Factor’s legendary combination sandwiches. I belly up to the gaudy No. 9, a triple-decker consisting of corned beef, pastrami, tongue, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing, lettuce and tomato, all jammed between steamy slices of Factor’s exemplary deli rye bread.

This is a huge portion, perhaps big enough to serve three at lunch, and it comes with sides of good coleslaw and potato salad. You’ll also get all the half-sour pickles you can eat, a choice of mustards and, what I’d describe as a perverse joke, the option to substitute a reduced-fat cheese. Now that’s what I call wishful thinking.

Factor’s Famous Deli, 16348 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 386-2626. No. 9 Combination, $9.95.

8. THE SUB

Domingo’s is a top-notch Italian market, but it also serves terrific subs, the best around. They’ll make any type of sub you request, grainy Italian sausage, ham and Swiss, Italian-style tuna, providing they have the raw materials.

The sub of choice here is a robust Italian cold-cut version, made on a French roll from Baccarat or, my preference, fresh mini-loaves of Italian bread from Italia bakery in Granada Hills (owned by a brother of the proprietor of Domingo’s).

Domingo’s brushes the bread with a delicious homemade dressing made from virgin olive oil and fresh herbs, then adds such piquant meats as thinly sliced capicolla, mortadella, provolone cheese and red roasted peppers. It’s a soft sandwich with a yielding bite that must weigh a good pound and a half. And what’s more, the cold cuts are always sliced to order, never pulled out of plastic wrap, as is the case with lesser sub makers throughout the area.

Domingo’s, 17548 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 981-4466. Submarine sandwich, $4.25.

9. THE CUBAN

Encino’s Versailles is the best known Cuban restaurant in the Valley, but I favor the food at Glendale’s La Cubana, a drab stucco building with stained-glass-window panels that could pass, from the outside anyway, as a men’s club somewhere in the Midwest.

The star dish is similar in spirit to a submarine sandwich. It’s called Sandwich Cubano, and it is an entire meal for just $3.95. The sandwich is served warm, filled with thin sliced ham, lechon --succulent roast pork--cut equally thin, Swiss cheese, mustard, mayo and butter. The bread, in this case, is butter-grilled Cuban, a sweet, dry French baguette that goes perfectly with the meats inside. Ask for the sandwich with the restaurant’s zippy homemade pickles, which the Cubans call a “media noche,” because it makes such a perfect midnight snack.

La Cubana, 720 E. Colorado St., Glendale, (818) 243-4398. Sandwich Cubano, $3.95.

10. THE LOX

I was reared in a family that religiously consumed bagels, Philadelphia cream cheese and deliciously salty Nova lox every Sunday for breakfast. Taken warm with slices of Bermuda onion and, in particularly indulgent fashion, ripe tomato, the sandwich remains one of my favorite comfort foods.

Brent’s Deli in Northridge gets bagels fresh daily--about 10 different varieties--from the very good Western Bagel Co. of Los Angeles. I have a particular weakness for the sandwich on a poppy seed bagel, but you get to name your own poison--garlic, onion, rye, water, egg or whatever is on hand. The salmon is smoked troll king salmon, and it is hand cut. The cream cheese is from Newton’s, double whipped on the premises, making for an extra light feeling biting in.

Brent’s, 19565 Parthenia St., Northridge, (818) 349-9850. Bagel with lox and cream cheese, $7.45.