The Sandwich

A sandwich is any dish wherein two or more pieces of bread serve as a container or wrapper for another food type.

The sandwich is named after John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who is said to have asked his servant to bring him meat stuffed between two slices of bread so that he would be less inconvenienced while out hunting, playing cards, and just generally being a rich gentleman on the go. Apparently, his friends took notice and asked for ‘the same as Sandwich.’ And so, the name stuck.

The first written record of the word “sandwich” appeared in Edward Gibbons (1737-1794), English author, scholar, and historian, journal on November 24, 1762.

Sandwiches, valued their portability are a popular type of lunch food, taken to work, school, or
picnics to be eaten as part of a packed lunch.

People in the United States eat an estimated 300 million sandwiches every day — on average, about one a day for every American.

The British eat around 11.5 billion sandwiches a year. That is about 31,000,000 daily.

In restaurants, sandwiches are menued more frequently than any other type of entrée

Hawaii used to be called ‘The Sandwich Islands’. They were also named after John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich in 1778.

The verb ‘to sandwich’ is 200 years old. It was first used in 1815 to mean ‘to have a light meal’.

The Wall Street Journal has described the sandwich as Britain’s “biggest contribution to gastronomy”

National Sandwich day is November the 3rd.

More than 300,000 people are employed in the sandwich industry in the UK. 

THE FIRST SANDWICH...

The modern sandwich is named after Lord Sandwich, but the exact circumstances of its invention and original use are still the subject of debate. A rumour in a contemporaneous travel book called Tour to London by Pierre-Jean Grosley formed the popular myth that bread and meat sustained Lord Sandwich at the gambling table. But Sandwich was into many bad habits, including the Hellfire club, and any story may be a creation after the fact. 

Lord Sandwich was a very conversant gambler, the story goes, and he did not take the time to have a meal during his long hours playing at the card table. Consequently, he would ask his servants to bring him slices of meat between two slices of bread, a habit well known among his gambling friends. Other people, according to this account, began to order "the same as Sandwich!", and thus the "sandwich" was born. 

The sober alternative to this account is provided by Sandwich's biographer N. A. M. Rodger, who suggests that Sandwich's commitments to the navy, to politics, and to the arts mean that the first sandwich was more likely to have been consumed at his work desk.

The original sandwich was a piece of salt beef between two slices of toasted bread. How bland!



Lord Sandwich^