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Sandwich

a term, and indeed an object, whose origin is generally attributed to John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who according to the NSOED is ‘said to have eaten food in this form so as to avoid having to leave the gaming table’. Ayto (1993) cites a work of 1770, Londres, by the author Grosley in support of this view, and remarks that the first use of the word in print occurs in the journal of Edward Gibbon for 24 November 1762, when he had dinner at an establishment which he regarded as ‘truly English’ and was able to observe numerous important contemporaries supping off cold meat ‘or a Sandwich’.

Sandwiches take so many forms in the modern world that a catalogue would be a book. A complicating factor is that the classic formulation of two pieces of bread either side of a filling has been extended to innumerable variations such as the Scandinavian open sandwich (the Danish smørrebrød—another 19th century innovation, see also smörgåsbord), filled flatbreads as served in doner kebab shops, or the soft tortilla wraps that have spread beyond Mexico; and even sometimes to encompass the French tartine (bread buttered and topped by preserves, meat, or cheese) or the Italian bruschetta. These, like the canapé, should not qualify as sandwiches at all. Nor, in truth, should the English ‘butty’, which at the start meant the same as tartine or smørrebrød. However, the bacon and the chip butty (cf. the Belge of francophone countries) have brought it into the fold.

The importance of the sandwich to western habits of eating is incalculable. It appears perfectly moulded to the currents of social change that have encompassed personal mobility, work habits, and the multiplication of households. In the USA, the Subway chain has more stores than McDonald's. In Britain, expenditure on sandwiches constitutes 38% of all spending on fast food, nearly double that on hamburgers. And the sandwich has penetrated cultures that might have seemed proof against it. Italian panini are filled rolls of many shapes and sizes (often grilled), now experiencing a surge of popularity beyond Italy itself. The Spanish bocadilla likewise— reserving the word sándwich for American- or English-style offerings between slices of white bread. The French as well have embraced the filled baguette.

Sandwiches lent themselves to commercial exploitation through specialist outlets as well as being simply made supplements to a restaurant or tavern menu and an easy packed lunch for worker or schoolchild. In Mayhew's London of 1850 there were already 70 street vendors selling ham sandwiches. In western Holland, sandwich bars, serving liver and salt beef sandwiches, were commercially important from the 1850s. Perhaps the richest sandwich culture is that of America where cities have been quick to claim a particular form as their own, and where a habit of excess seemed well suited to sandwich-makers' creative invention. Some of the more remarkable types are:

• The Reuben sandwich, a New York Jewish creation, combining corned beef and Emmental with sauerkraut on sourdough pumpernickel bread, the whole being grilled. Evan Jones (1981) discusses rival theories about its origin, one of which takes it back to 1914 (when an actress in a Charlie Chaplin film supposedly ate the first Reuben special, but with Virginia baked ham instead of corned beef) whereas the national Kraut Packers Association supports the view that a grocer called Reuben Kay, taking part in a weekly poker game in Omaha as recently as 1955, was the true inventor.
• A club sandwich (first appeared in print 1903, in a book called Conversations of a Chorus Girl) is usually a three-decker toast affair, with chicken, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, and bacon. Some believe that it was originally only a two-decker, perhaps matching the two-decker ‘club cars’ running on US railroads from 1895.
• The Dagwood, named for the sort of colossal over-stuffed and many-layered sandwich which the famous Dagwood Bumstead, in the comic strip called Blondie, favoured. From 1936 onwards, but in its early days not as huge as it became.
• The submarine is one of a whole group that may be called hero sandwiches, grinder, or hoagie, consisting of French or Italian bread generously filled with various savoury ingredients. It can be called just ‘sub’ or ‘torpedo’, or (especially in New Orleans) a po'boy—although that city would claim that the French bread and beef (or other meat or fish) and gravy filling is unique. Another New Orleans speciality is the Italian-derived muffaletta dating from 1906, identifiable by its size and invariable olive salad filling.

Butties (see above) and sarnies are English slang terms for sandwiches, the former north country and long established, the latter more recent. In terms of gentility a Liverpool chip butty is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the decorous and delicate little cucumber sandwiches which appear on British afternoon tea tables.

Fernie (1905) had a remarkable knack for picking up amusing and arresting anecdotes or quotations to enliven what he wrote about foods. Here are three examples from his entry on Sandwich.

• [From The Pickwick Papers] ‘What are all them clerks eating Sandvidges for?’ asked Mr Weller, senior, of his son, Sam, when they went together to the Will Office, at the Bank of England. ‘Cos it's their dooty, I suppose,’ replied Sam; ‘it's a part o' the system: they're allvays a-doin' it here, all day long.’
• Some remarkable Sandwiches were lately recorded (by Dr J. Johnston) as having been made with satisfactory effect of cottonwool, for a patient who accidentally swallowed his false teeth through being struck in the face by a wave whilst swimming in the open sea. He was treated with Sandwiches containing a thin layer of cotton-wool in each, between the slices of bread and butter; and after a week, when a mild laxative was given, the dental structure, being now enrolled in cotton-wool, was passed without difficulty amongst the excrement.
• [From Alice through the Looking Glass] … the White Knight had a little box ‘of his own invention,’ to keep clothes and Sandwiches in, ‘You see,’ he told Alice, ‘I carry it upside down so that the rain can't get in.’ ‘But the things can get out,’ Alice gently remarked; ‘do you know the lid's open?’

Finally, Giacomo Casanova recorded an early instance of the abiding urban myth of a prostitute consuming her earnings in a sandwich or, in this case, a butty. He tells of meeting the notorious courtesan Kitty Fisher (d. 1767) who ‘had eaten a bank-note for a thousand guineas, on a slice of bread and butter, that very day. The note was a present from Sir Akins, brother of the fair Mrs. Pitt. I do not know whether the bank thanked Kitty for the present she had made it.’

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