An earl, a trend and a lasting legacy // Why we call sandwiches sandwiches?

Last two months or so has been a rather unpredictable and my mind has been on many things and none all at once. As a consequence there hasn’t been much happening of interest in my kitchen, that is if you don’t count the plethora of overcooked roasted vegetables and the mission to use up as many things from my fridge as possible. Now that decisions has been made, sort of, and I have a bit of a mental capacity to think, it is time to don my historical apron again.

To embrace the rather spontaneous meals my boyfriend and I have been having, I thought it would be fun and fitting to explore historical sandwiches and, while reading about them, I discovered a interesting story concerning their name. Thankfully that meant hopping into the 18th century, my favourite playground.

Print of John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, c. 1787. Currently at The British Museum (Q,2.63)

Enter the man, the legend himself - John Montagu. He was born in 1718 and at the age of 10 became the 4th Earl of Sandwich. He studied at Eton and later Trinity Collage, did The Grand Tour, sat in the House of Lords and became awfully busy to stop and have a meal. The most romanticised and by far popular version of the birth of sandwich and our earl centres around gambling. Story goes that he was so deep into a all night card game that he didn’t want to leave the table to eat. So he asked a servant to bring some meat in between two slices of bread which could be eaten with one hand and leave the other for the cards. Another version says that he just asked the servant for a quick and easy meal to have at the table and a nameless chef came up with a sandwich. Either way this story has some grounding to it. Pierre-Jean Grosley, a French travel writer who visited London in 1765, during his trip says he observed that

“A minister of state passed four and twenty hours at a public gaming table, so absorpt in play, that, during the whole time, he had no subsistence but a piece of beef, between two slices of toasted bread, which he eat without ever quitting the game. This new dish grew highly in vague, during my residence in London: it was called by the name of the minister who invented it. “

A satirical print titled S Sandwich by Samuel William Fores, 1788, The British Museum (1868,0808.5671)

The bit more pragmatic version is that during his long work hours our earl was so absorbed in papers that he didn’t have time for a proper meal. So whether thought of by him or by his cook, a sandwich became a staple meal for him. As hard as it is sometimes to imagine our ancestors lives centuries ago, I don’t think that most of us would struggle to relate to this situation. At any rate, people not only started to notice what he ate but also began to order “the same as Sandwich” which sometime later was shortened to just sandwich.

Whatever the true version of the story is, Earl Sandwich must have been a memorable man for not only the sandwich is named after him, but also islands of Hawaii were first known as the Sandwich islands. And now time for a snack. I am thinking a slice of cheese and some ham… in between two slices a bread perhaps?

Sources

Wilson, Bee, Sandwich. A Global History, Reaktion Books, 2010
Encyclopaedia Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Montagu-4th-Earl-of-Sandwich (last updated on 26th April, 2022 and accessed on 10th June, 2022)

Title image
Portrait of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich by Johan Joseph Zoffany
oil on canvas, feigned oval, based on a work of circa 1764
29 in. x 24 in. (737 mm x 610 mm)
National Portrait Gallery, London