The meaty story of sandwich history - From beaches to Earls, it's come a long way

Generally everyone thinks of the same image when hearing the word sandwich; some form of meat, cheese or vegetable in between two pieces of bread. There was a time, however, when this standard lunch fare was not a part of the culinary vocabulary.

The history of the sandwich is filled with geography, politics, power and gentlemen's clubs, and perhaps knowing a bit of it will give you a new appreciation for your ham and cheese on white bread.

On the contrary, there is not an immediate connection between the word sandwich and the concoction of meat, cheese and various vegetables inside two pieces of bread. The word that conjures up images of pastrami-on-rye or ham-and-Swiss-on-white did not begin with that purpose.

The word sandwich first appeared as the name for a town on beaches northwest of England, in Sandwich Kent. According to http://www.open-sandwich.co.uk, since the town was close to the shore and rested on the beach, sandwich meant "sandy place" or "place of sand."

So, when taken literally or interpreted by an ancient Roman citizen, when you go to Subway or stop by Levering for lunch between classes, you're not eating a delicious midday meal, but rather a piece of sand, or even, for the particularly ravenous, an entire beach. Not the most appetizing thought.

How then did sandwich make the transition from describing a beach to the label for that lovely staple of the American luncheon that has recently come under competition from the low-carb wrap? Well, one rumor is that the Earl of Sandwich invented the meal, and therefore it bears his name.

This theory has some truth to it, but it doesn't tell the whole story. On American chef Linda Stradley's Web site, http://whatscookingamerica.net, there are references to what we know as the sandwich occurring as far back as the 1st Century B.C., but the famous Earl of Sandwich was indeed the first person to popularize what became known as the sandwich.

In differing accounts, John Montague, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, was an important cabinet minister around the time of the French and Indian War and was a busy man with his official duties as First Lord of the Admiralty.

However, like many American politicians today, there are other accounts that Montague kept busy with his unofficial duties as well, mainly those that required him to spend long hours at the gambling tables of London's most posh gentlemen's club, the London Beef Steak Club.

Going by either account, in 1765 the Earl was occupied for many hours at a time, either hard at work at his desk or hard at the play in the clubs, and therefore could only nourish himself by eating salt beef between two slices of bread.

Soon the order for this dish, which was a frequent favorite of Montague, became known as the "same as Sandwich," and then simply "sandwich."

Since that period in the mid-18th century, many other bread and meat combinations have come under the proud title of sandwich.

According to Ms. Stradley, the club sandwich, a combination of chicken breast, bacon, tomatoes, lettuce and mayonnaise between two or three slices of bread, appeared in the Saratoga Springs, N.Y. gentlemen's club, the Saratoga Club-House, in 1894.

Despite its name, The French Dip Sandwich was actually invented in America, by Franco-American Phillipe Mathieu, who, in 1918 while working in his L.A. Delicatessen, dropped a slice of French bread in the drippings of a roasting pan as he was preparing a sandwich for a police officer.

And what about peanut butter and jelly, the sandwich that was the only food that many of us ate during the early 1990s and a culinary favorite in any lazy college student's diet?

A St. Louis physician, Dr. Ambrose Straub, invented peanut butter in 1880. It gained popularity later that year at the Chicago World's Fair and by 1904 was being manufactured for commercial production.

During World War II, peanut butter was cheap to manufacture and easy to transport, so it was a staple for many GIs overseas, who added jelly into the mix to make the taste of the sandwich more enjoyable.

Back home in the US, with rationing, peanut butter was inexpensive and available to the general public, who used it with jelly as a good source of protein.

So, the next time you order the meatball hero or the classic Italian BMT, keep in mind that the concept of putting meat, cheese, vegetables and fruits between two pieces of bread is a very historic one.

It's very easy to take for granted the fact that you're eating the product of two millennia of progress and that humans were once not innovative enough to figure out that sticking meat, cheese and lettuce between bread and eating it was a good thing.

But for most people, knowing that the sandwich took the better part of the common era to develop might make them enjoy their turkey on wheat a little more, even if it's just mediocre Terrace cafeteria food.