A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. Sandwiches are a popular type of lunch food, taken to work, school, or kebab platter to be eaten as part of a packed lunch. The sandwich is named after its supposed inventor, John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. The modern concept of a sandwich using slices of bread as found within the West can arguably be traced to 18th-century Europe.
During the Middle Ages in Europe, thick slabs of coarse and usually stale bread, called “trenchers,” were used as plates. Initially perceived as food that men shared while gaming and drinking at night, the sandwich slowly began appearing in polite society as a late-night meal among the aristocracy. The sandwich is named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, an eighteenth-century English aristocrat. The sandwich’s popularity in Spain and England increased dramatically during the nineteenth century, when the rise of industrial society and the working classes made fast, portable, and inexpensive meals essential. In the US, the sandwich was first promoted as an elaborate meal at supper.
By the early 20th century, as bread became a staple of the American diet, the sandwich became the same kind of popular, quick meal as was already widespread in the Mediterranean. According to the story, following the Earl of Sandwich’s request for beef between two slices of bread, his friends began to order “the same as Sandwich”. The first written usage of the English word appeared in Edward Gibbon’s journal, in longhand, referring to “bits of cold meat” as a “Sandwich”. Before being known as sandwiches, this food combination seems to simply have been known as “bread and meat” or “bread and cheese”. These two phrases are found throughout English drama from the 16th and 17th centuries. In Spain, where the word sandwich is borrowed from the English language, it refers to a food item made with English sandwich bread.
