Race meetings, cricket matches, a day’s fishing or simply a hike in the country, all require sustenance of a kind that satisfies an appetite sharpened by the open air and is easy to transport without getting in the way of the main event. We have the gambling habits of an eighteenth-century English aristocrat to thank for the solution. In order not to have his play at the card table interrupted, John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, called for cold meat between two slices of bread, thus devising the meal-between-covers which now bears his name. Since then, the sandwich has earned a permanent place in our gastronomic life, for better or worse. With some honourable exceptions, especially amongst city sandwich bars, the public sandwich is a rather dull fellow. I know we’ve gone beyond the listless, curling, white bread filled with a slice of processed ham or cheese, but there is so much more that can be done with the sandwich. The ‘BLT’ and the Chicken Tikka are on the right lines, but be adventurous. Rather than consider what is suitable to put between slices of bread, consider everything suitable until proved otherwise. Also, experiment by using different types of bread with the same filling (baking).
