The Earl
It’s a fact! On August 6, 1762, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich asked for a meal between two slices of bread and thus, the sandwich was born. Legend has it that the Earl was a gambler so addicted to card-playing, he didn’t want to leave his card game to eat—thus the request. Centuries later, August has become the American National Sandwich Month, the celebration of toasties and foot-longs, lunchtime favorites to relish at leisure or on-the-go.
John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich: National Portrait Gallery, London, UK Creative Commons
The Marquée
My own memories of sandwiches date from school days: sweet bologna or egg and olive sandwiches wrapped in wax paper inside my square metal lunch box with a clasp on top. A more vivid memory surfaces just now: An excursion to Philadelphia, probably a school trip, experiencing the thrill of visiting an Automat, like the one shown here, Horn and Hardart emblazoned on the restaurant’s marquée—not marquis, a royal title!
Audrey Hepburn selects a sandwich at Horn & Hardart Automat in NYC. Photo by Larry Fried, 1951
Dozens and dozens of choices were available self-serve. Just insert a nickel (later a dime) into the slot, and ipso-presto the glass door would open so customers could pull out the delectable sandwich, salad, or dessert. The novelty, which has died out over the years, is experiencing a rebirth.
Another Memory
Excerpt from Mennonite Daughter, chapter 15, Metzler Reunion
All my aunts look like pears, and my uncles like apples except for lean Uncle Clyde. And, believe me, my uncles had mirth to match their girth. Each of my mother’s brothers could do something funny or strange. Uncle Landis could click his false teeth up and down on his gums clickety-clack, Uncle Leroy would wiggle his ears, both at the same time, Uncle Clyde’s hand-shake included a tickle with his index finger on the palm of my hand, and Uncle Abe can play his harmonica strapped around his neck with no hands. Both Abe and Pastor Clyde could stand on their heads, and all the brothers talked “pig Latin” between themselves, a play with words they used to conceal meaning from others. The idea was to add extra syllables to a word, something like this: Happy day, Lucky Duck could be spoken as “appyhay day, luckday duckday. When my cousin Janet and I heard their crazy talk like gibberish, we didn’t try to figure it out – we just walked away. They were having the time of their lives though, brothers letting loose on a Sunday afternoon, I recognize now released from toeing a strict line in the fields and with their families during the week.
After my sisters and I made the rounds of our goofy uncles, we matched up with cousins our own age. I played with my cousin, cute, freckle-faced Janet who had glossy, bright red hair. Janice and Jean played with spunky, brown-haired Ruth Ann, Janie, Anna Mae, Rachel, and Gerry.
The Metzler clan headed by three brothers were two generations removed from me: Uncle Herman, Uncle Monroe, and Grandpa Abram, my mother’s father formed the pillars of the family. About 12:30, Uncle Monroe jangled the dinner bell and all the youngsters came running. After Uncle Clyde, the preacher, said grace in his formal sounding voice “Aw-ver Fawther . . . and bless the food to its intended use,” we stuffed down our ham sandwiches, potato salad and baked beans, hoping we could be free to run around in the park soon.
The Duke
In the 1990s, both my husband Cliff and I were busy with our careers, me in college teaching and he, the traveling artist performing in schools across the country. When he had a break in his schedule, he sometimes made me sandwiches for my bag lunch. Thus, Cliff has been dubbed the Duke of Sandwich.
Let Lunch Be Served
by Cliff Beaman
Give me 12-grain
And pile high
The luncheon meat or turkey.
A tincture of mayo,
A drizzle of mustard
And leafy lettuce.
Let lunch be served.
Small baby pretzels,
Let others have the dill,
Sweet crunchy pickles for me.
Maybe a salad
With green or black olives,
Or leftovers will do.
Let lunch be served.
Drop in the juice
Near packets of shiny plastic,
And throw in the napkins.
Oh neighbors, oh campus,
Oh, fellow professors,
Let all the world know–
By unseen hands
Other than mine
Let lunch be served
For me, not by me.
Your Helpmate, Cliff
Idea originated when Cliff was making Marian’s lunch for school. Include poem with sandwich. June 16, 1999, 8:40 a.m.
Do you have a favorite sandwich?
Did you eat in the school cafeteria or bring a lunch?
Good morning, Marian! How sweet that Cliff made your sandwiches.
My dad loved sandwiches. He always piled lots of onion on his!
Children, husband, and I eat lots of pb&J sandwiches–a variety of breads and jams, never white bread and grape jelly. 🙂
Thanks for including a bit of your family’s sandwich preferences. Never white bread for us unless it’s sourdough. Thanks, Merril!
Sourdough is different. I mean like Wonder bread. 🙂
Wonderbread ;-/
Lovely memory. Until transfer to the new Etown high school we walked home for lunch; at the new school, cafeteria lunches were lovely!
Wouldn’t the Earl of Sandwich be surprised that his laziness caused such a universal food item to be known all over the world?!
So nice that Cliff made your lunch and even wrote a poem about it!
I love a BLT sandwich but usually when I make my own it’s an egg salad sandwich, made with brown bread from the local bakery.
Elfrieda, I picture you eating healthy–always. Mother made egg salad sandwiches now that I think about it. She also made tomato sandwiches with white bread. Now verboten in our house. 😀
Thanks for checking in, Jack. After lunches in a metal box (elementary school), I have vague memories of the cafeteria.
I always appreciate your feedback, often about details in our common history. 😀
My favourite sandwich is nothing fancy just some lovely fresh brown bread, a hardboiled egg mixed with a tiny bit of mayo and lots of fresh mustard and cress…
Carol, that sounds delicious! I’m guessing you are referring to watercress with your egg sandwich. I consider you quite the connoisseur, my friend. 😀
Thank you but no Mustard and Cress is different to watercress although I do love watercress and can grow that here although I am on the hunt for some seeds( they are one of the first things we teach children to grow as they sprout on a piece of lint, In the US Cress (is sometimes called garden cress, garden pepper cress, pepperwort, or pepper grass) is a leafy annual herb from the Brassica family.https://www.koppertcress.com/en/products/mustard-cress….Have a lovely week Marian 🙂
An ode to the sandwich. Love it. My mother always said that the key to a good sandwich was to use plenty of butter and spread it right to the edges of the bread. I have to say, I don’t follow that advice now – mustard only, usually – but I love a great sandwich with a wonderful combination of soft texture with crunch.
Our mothers had the same philosophy: Butter makes it better.
I too often skip butter on sandwiches. How interesting to make sandwiches with a combo of different textures. Thanks, Arlene! 😀
My favourite sandwich is a grilled cheese sandwich, preferably with whole grain bread and a slice of tomato. There was no cafeteria in our farm school. We all brought lunch in our lunch kits. Mine was a Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lunch kit. How kind of Cliff to make you lunch. xo
I don’t remember the different designs on my lunch boxes although one year I carried a plaid one. Thanks for eliciting a special memory, Darlene! 😀
I’m writing from Cologne, Germany, and just ordered a croque monsieur for lunch. It was made on white bread and had too much mayo for my taste. But otherwise it was excellent.
I enjoyed the quote from your book, especially your fruit shaped aunts and uncles and the Pa Dutch pronunciation in the prayer.
Now I’m remembering Cologne. When we visited, the huge cathedral was covered in scaffolding to restore the beauty of the surface.
About the excerpt from my first memoir, you certainly remember Mennonite folk with shapes like that.
Enjoy the rest of your trip, Shirley! 😀
Wonderful poem! What a great post! I didn’t know the origin of the sandwich. How lovely that your husband made lunch for you. I enjoy a good ham sandwich (as you mentioned in your excerpt). I used to live near a deli that made a great ham and cheese sandwich.
At school (elementary, high school, undergraduate, and graduate school), I ate in the cafeteria.
It’s 5 o’clock p.m. and now I’m hungry for a ham sandwich. Ha!
Now that you mention it, I believe I ate in the cafeteria in high school. I always enjoy your insights, L. Marie. Thank you! 😀
Marian — I’m a huge fan of sandwiches. My favorite is a grilled Swiss cheese on sourdough dunked in tomato soup.
Laurie, that’s a meal Cliff usually manages–but grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup separately. The dunking part sounds like FUN! 😀
I love Cliff’s sandwich poem! The key to a woman’s heart is through her stomach? When I was a kid, the infamous Fluffernutter was my favorite sandwich, although my mother didn’t buy marshmallow fluff very often. These days, my go-to sandwich is the caprese.
You are the first to mention the sandwich poem. Ha!
I wonder what kind of bread you use for your caprese sandwich. Back in the day, I’d bring sliced tomatoes, slices of mozzarella with basil for faculty lunch day.
Thanks for checking in on a busy day, Liz! 😀
Most of the time it was a bologna sandwich, piece of fruit, and a small can of apple juice. My mother would freeze the apple juice, and it was packed in a double paper sack used to bring home ice cream. By the time the apple juice thawed, it was lunch, and sandwich had been kept cold. Heaven forbid if we lost the little can opener for the juice!
Nowadays, my favorite sandwich is leftover homemade meatloaf, lettuce, slice of cheese, slice of onion, tickle of honey mustard on whatever bread we might have. But I only make a half-sandwich. A whole one is too much!
Ginger, all of your food descriptions are making me hungry.
How ingenious your mother was, packing your lunch with built-in refrigeration. I’m impressed.
I like the expression “tickle of honey mustard” in the description of your lunches nowadays.
Thanks, Ginger! 😀
Do you have a favorite sandwich? Not any more after my recent experience with listeria
Did you eat in the school cafeteria or bring a lunch? I was a *buyer* and not a *packer* My mother thought it was better for me. I had a different opinion but lost that battle.
I believe you mentioned the horrible bacterial infection on a recent post. Ugh! I hope all the corruption is long gone from your system.
Your mother-daughter opinion about lunch made me smile, Ally! 😀
You two are so cute!
We eat sandwiches for lunch every day, ideally on dark bread: me cheese, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, and mayonnaise. Mark: hummus (or goat cheese when affordable) with the same veggies.
I can’t believe vending machines were popular back in the day. We’ve had fresh bread vending machines in Belgium forever, but I was recently surprised to find fresh strawberry machines as well. And, apparently, there are stores here with just a variety of vending machines where you can buy “everything.”
Yummy sandwiches in Belgium–but, of course.
I’m guessing vending machines are popular because they are profitable. Besides, no servers needed.
Right now, my son-in-law and grandson are visiting Belgium–an excursion before buckling down to his junior year in chemical engineering. They’d better bring back some good photos and videos. 😀
Thanks L. Marie and Liz for your comment on my sandwich poem.
Marian put so much energy into teaching English to her college students, I figured on that day she could use a little humor with her food.
I remember, especially as a sixth grader at Fields Elementary School in Spokane, WA that I most often brought my lunch from home. My parent’s budget did not include “buying” a lunch at the school cafeteria. So I ate my sandwich which was delicious but I had to eat it secretly with my head almost to the cafeteria table!
The reason was this: my Mom was a great cook and baked her own bread. The very thick slices were absolutely delicious BUT the bread had BIG holes in it! (The days way before a bread-making machine).
After I survived the embarrassment from my lunch experiences, my brother and I leaped on our bikes, peddled furiously to our home about 1.5 miles away, charged into the kitchen and would eagerly slather butter on the fresh-baked bread…without anyone making fun of me.
Cliff, your memory is bittersweet: bitter because of your embarrassment at the time–and sweet because the bread tasted SO good. Homemade bread is all the rage now, enviable even. 😀
A fun post about sandwiches, Marian. Wasn’t Audrey Hepburn beautiful?
Yes, Audrey Hepburn was naturally beautiful and also a stylish dresser.
I’m glad you enjoyed this post; I enjoyed creating it. Thanks, Robbie! 😀
Accidental food inventions are the best. I wonder what percentage were unintentionally created. Oh, my. Cliff makes a good looking sandwich. I’ll bet it’s tasty besides having a great moniker. I eat a sandwich nearly every day.
Thanks for tuning in, Pete. Now we have all kinds of hand-helds: sliders, sub sandwiches, wraps, even chimichangas. And now you have the time to fix any sandwich you like. 😀
Best of luck on your new book, Marian.
Thanks, Jacquie, the content is struggling for a substantial theme: What’s next?
What a fun post Marian. So that’s how the sandwich was born! And of course Cliff is the Duke! Lol 🙂 xx
Thank, Debby–and who knew Audrey Hepburn indulged at Horn and Hardart!
Right? 🙂
I bet you thought I fell off the earth or was traveling. Well, we did travel about 8 days (including to Fla., sorry we couldn’t stop in Jacksonville) but the real issue was my computer disobeyed me. It’s working again!
Hubby is loving big tomato sandwiches with a slice of bolgona and salad dressing. Yum. I’ll skip the bolgona and have tomato and cheese, if nothing else.
Truly would have loved to head to your house in J.ville but we were headed to Altha where my brother lives and I had not visited down there for 8 or more years. It was time. Had a great time and then headed also to Bessemer City NC to visit one of Stuart’s favorite cousins.
Welcome back, Melodie. Yes, I assumed you were traveling. Since you missed us this time, you can always try again. I understand: Jacksonville in NE Florida is not really on the beaten path for travelers coming from the north.
Yes, I remember Mother toasting bread for tomato sandwiches–tomatoes fresh from the field or garden. Although I like bologna, I don’t like that with tomatoes or cheese. 😀
Awww, not only a sandwich, but a poem with it?? Impressive. My guy has never made me a sandwich. But in all honesty, we don’t eat sandwiches anymore. It’s leftovers from the night before, or a salad or perhaps a wrap. But growing up my mom made me bologna sandwiches, which I hated, or PBJ on white bread, which I also disliked because the bread always stuck in my teeth. I think I ate the small container of applesauce she gave me or traded with someone. However, when you described your childhood sandwiches and the metal lunchbox, I could SMELL it – yours and mine. Definitely brought back memories. As well as the time my dad brought the family to NYC and we ate at the automat. A big deal. I most liked the pie. 🙂
Like you guys, leftovers from the night before, or a salad is our usual fare. A salad for the evening meal keeps our weight down, I must say. Thanks also for mentioning the automat–you in NYC and me in Philly. I too went for the dessert. Ha! 😀
Of course, the desserts were the best. Back then. Now, I’m not sure we’d be so impressed. 🙂
Cliff gets an A+. I’m so glad he’s culinary as well as funny. Vic did all the cleaning up and salad making while I cooked the main course. I have less enthusiasm for cooking without his enthusiasm for eating whatever I cooked. His sandwich was on wholewheat. Thanks for the memories.
You had the perfect partner in Vic in the kitchen and all around.
I’m glad this post jogged happy memories. And thank you for telling us here, Elaine! 😀
Cute sandwich poem! I really like a good tuna salad sandwich with tomato slices, very thin sweet onion slices, lettuce, and Provolone. Yum!
Thank you for joining into the conversation here, Priscilla. You are welcome anytime. 😀
Hi Marian, I’m suddenly hungry for one of Cliff’s sandwiches, although I just ate dinner! I smiled at the wax paper reference. I may be the only one who still wraps sandwiches in wax paper. It’s so much easier than plastic wrap, and better for the environment! Great post 🥪
Thank you Barbara! Yes, I too prefer wax paper to anything plastic, which may contain parabens–bad for the environment also possibly carcinogenic. 😀
True that. We’re cutting back as much as possible.