The Sandwich

Sandwiches get a bad wrap in this country, whether it is those dreadful pre-packed ones or an unfresh limp pack up for work. People dismiss them all too easily as a snack or a fast food. They are not simply just a foodstuff to convert into energy or a stopgap until the main meal of the day. A sandwich should be made with love and every bite should be savored.

When done right, with quality bread and fresh fillings/ingredients its magical. Like a simple cucumber sandwich, with a little salad cream and most importantly salt & pepper it becomes a beautiful thing. Perfect for hot summer days, when it’s too hot to even turn the hob or oven on. Cucumber sandwiches evokes such memories for me that it takes me back to my Gran’s house after school cricket matches and sitting in her old fashioned kitchen. This is when I truly discovered what pepper was all about as its piquancy of heat danced along my taste buds. Before then it was just something my dad reached for at mealtimes, dare I say it to spice up my mum's cooking. I have to admit to having a slight bias, as my dad grows Cucumbers commercially and I have spent what seems like a lifetime sweating for this prickly fruit.

Sandwiches are so flexible from the classic cucumber, to the famous Ploughman’s, ham and mustard, beef and horseradish, the American club sandwich and tuna and mayo. Or as I prefer it tuna and salad cream, normally with some spring onion, black olives, olive oil and if I am in the mood a few slithers of chili. Then there is possibly the greatest, the bacon sandwich or the BLT with warm crisp bacon sitting on a bed of fresh lettuce with tomato on top. I am sure purists might say “no” to some ketchup, I kind of compromise and have half with ketchup and the other half naked.

I saw Heston Blumenthal on TV recently discussing his research into the Ploughman’s, as he wanted to re-imagine this dish as only Heston can. He believed, like everybody, that it had a long history of been the food of the workingman. That farmers and labourers ate their Ploughman' in the fields and in the oldie worldie pubs of yesteryear. Well I was surprised at Heston’s results that the Ploughman' was a creation of a major company to help sell pickle back in the 60’s. Fancy that.

(Since I wrote this piece The Hairy Bikers have also mentioned this fact in their series The Hairy Bakers)

I would even go, as far to say that hot dogs and hamburgers are a form of a sandwich, they are just a cultural and regional variation just like tortillas and chapattis. They all serve the same function of surrounding a filling and making it easier pick up and put in your mouth or a lunchbox

Then there is the wackiest sandwich of them all, a national institution from the US, the jam and peanut butter sandwich. I have never tried this crazy concoction, as I am not the biggest fan of peanut butter. However I do feel that one-day I will have to give this sandwich a whirl. As I love American pancakes and streaky bacon smothered in maple syrup. I think they are pretty similar, in that they both satisfy the salty and sweet areas of the tongue that’s probably why these bizarre flavor combinations work so well.

I think my love of baking bread stems from my insistence on quality bread for a quality sandwich. Sometimes its all about the simplicity of a cucumber sandwich or to the extreme of The Muffuletta......