A ham and cheese sandwich in the UK is usually a thin layer of ham, a thin layer of cheese, and some butter.
In the US, it's thick wodges of both, plus tomato and lettuce. It's just a more compelling option, and a small sad thing in a cardboard box pales in comparison.
If you walk into an average M&S "Simply Food" - and these are now everywhere and they sell 20% of all sandwiches eaten in the UK each day - you will be confronted with 15-20 different sandwiches in wraps, subs and traditional bread.
Not one of them will be the vision or memory you have of a thin slice of ham and a thin slice of cheese. The closest they sell to that has a decent amount of both and the sandwich is a good 2" thick.
There is typically a range of options with some that are "lighter" and some which pack in more ingredients. That's for price point reasons. Even in M&S you can get a sandwich, packet of crisps and a drink for £3.50 - for that, you might be prepared to forego some salad. If you want a little more, you can, and you will pay a little more for it, and you will be sated.
To me the sandwich industry has really changed over the last 5-10 years - far, far more choices.
Plus you can now waltz in and out of a supermarket without talking to a single soul here and sit there on your own at lunch being miserable, another British pastime which I throughly enjoy :)
> Plus you can now waltz in and out of a supermarket without talking to a single soul here and sit there on your own at lunch being miserable, another British pastime which I throughly enjoy :)
But, do you still get to queue? And who do you complain to about the weather?
Where you run into trouble is once you start loading it up with like 2 or 3 different meats plus bacon and slathering cheese on like there's no tomorrow, and then including loads of mayo and mayo-based sauces and toasting it with butter and so on and so forth. If you go into a sandwich shop and this describes half their sandwiches, it's because that is what their customers are looking for, but you can absolutely get a proper sandwich by asking.
A decent sandwich consisting of meat, some fat (either avocado or cheese, you don't need both unless you're making an avocado and cheese sandwich without any meat), and some good quality veggies on sliced bread, not rolls, is still going to come out pretty big, but it will fill you up and get you through the afternoon. More importantly, a good 50% of the overall thickness will be from the vegetables if you make it right. If you buy loafs, buy oval-shaped loafs as well, the outer parts can be used as toast and the inside will make solid sandwich bread.
You'll either find they don't need a spread at all like https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/253582556 - anything which has mayo on it means they get away without it. The "Just Ham" sandwich from Tesco does though, indeed, have butter.
(1) English people have famously bad taste when it comes to food, and most of them are truly willing to eat crap.
(2) Many English people are cash or time poor, and this stuff is everywhere for $cheap.
(3) Grab-and-go style sandwiches in boxes are made using industrial processes in which high initial investment results in small margins per sale which are often maximized at the expense of taste, eg. waterjet cutting, commercial standardized ingredients (eg. heavily processed industrial cheeses and meat slices), etc. As purely commercial operations, they don't care about quality until it limits sales.
I find your comment valuable though for the insight that bread products may be cut by waterjets:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrhThBHOGrU
This is astonishing: surely sogginess ensues?
Bonus bready humour:
While there is nothing particularly special about a Pret a Manger sandwich, it is made on the same day that you buy it.
Once I'd visited America a couple of times, and saw the serving-sizes which are offered it suddenly became obvious why obesity is such a big problem.
I'm a firm believer that if you ain't putting any love into making the sandwich, it's not worth eating. The only exception where you need simple is butter and salt and vinegar crisps. Everything else requires lettuce, tomato and cucumber, salt and pepper and depending on the meat a proper condiment for that meat - Ham & Mustard; Turkey & Cranberry Sauce; Chicken & Mayonnaise; Beef & Horseradish Sauce.
Razzano's in Glen Cove, is a good example, if you're on long island, NY. Molinari in SF is okay.
You've gotta try some more places then. The US is regionally overflowing with spectacular sandwich shops. Subway is at the bottom of the list not the top.
Try these guys if you ever get the chance:
The joke is that food in Britain is terrible, but I am at a loss to find any food that is British, other than Fish and Chips, breakfast and, well, the sandwich. On the other hand I can list many foods that are French, foods that are uniquely Danish, foods that are German (although I hope never again to have to eat saur-kraut).
- Shepherd's Pie
- Ploughmans Lunch
- Roast lamb and Yorkshire Pudding
- Toad in the Hole
- Fish & Chips
- Cornish Pasty
- Pork Pies
- Meat Pie
- Beef Wellington
- Spotted Dick
- Treacle Pudding
- Sticky Toffee Pudding
- Christmas Pudding
- Trifle
- Scones
I'm sure there are stacks more, these are just the ones I can list without stopping to think.
That's just for starters.
P.S. - it's Roast _Beef_ with Yorkshire Pudding. Roast Lamb is lovely with some mint sauce, and you can put a Yorkshire pudding next to it, sure, but most people would consider it more traditional to use beef.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosbif
Steamed sponge puddings like Spotted Dick
Cornish pasties
Meat pies like steak and kidney. Australians are mad about pies but they were a staple before the Brits took them there.
Shepherd's pie (it's not a pie so gets its own line).
Mustard with a nice kick. Not a meal, but it's very distinctive. It's closer to wasabi than to French mustard.
You'd think you'd get tired of the "all day breakfast triple", but nope!
Happily sometimes those are also discounted down to sub £1.
There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given
to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple
task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound.
Of course over here we have restaurants such as McDonald's and White Castle. Did those chains not have a presence in the UK in 1980? Or do other countries make a distinction between beef patties on a bun and sliced bread sandwiches?
McD's was certainly not widespread until later in the 80s, IIRC, and White Castle has never had a presence here AFAIK.
For example I had a small birthday-party, which I still remember fondly, at a Wimpy burger-place back in 84 or so.
I am not talking about the taste: I am sure you can make anything asymptotically tasteful, but I do not want to eat a sandwich that resists unaltered for weeks.
The ingredients you've bought and put in the fridge are no more or less likely to use preservatives than the ones that go into a supermarket sandwich.
The cost and ability to make it your own in terms of ingredients is a good reason to make your own, but the preservative argument? That doesn't make sense to me.
And I do sometimes eat sandwiches for dinner - on fresh bread of my choosing, with piles of fillings I like, nothing pre-prepared comes close.
That's not to say I object to a packet of sandwiches ow and again, but it rapidly loses its charm if that's all there is near work. I am lucky enough to have street food markets nearby in my current role.
I wonder if the Brit's have figured out something that the local marts in the US haven't?
So short answer - yes, they have figured it out.
Maybe I'm just not a sandwich person, but I really really hate the bread that they use in the prepackaged sandwiches. They tend to go for that dry, flaky and flavourless stuff that doesn't do anything for me.
Edit: Actually, there was one time I had a sandwich I liked, I think it was the premium stuff they sell at M&S, that one was 6/10.
I wonder whether we have regulations in place that prevent this, just like we do with alcohol? Or is it that the Aussie market is different? Or is there an un-tapped market ready for the taking?
I do sometimes wonder when visiting the UK what cultural difference accounts for the relative lack of popularity of such a wildly successful product in Britain here in Canada. Having not eaten bread for many years now though it's largely an academic question these days.
I never understood Subway here, just the smell walking past one on the street makes me feel slightly queasy.
Larger grocery stores do indeed sell sandwiches, but the selection is very small, and they're just not quite "right".
Fast food is easy, but sometimes you just want to sit down drink a decent cup of tea & have a sandwich..
Usually heavy on the sauce and easy ingredients like bacon, eggs, mayonnaise, but still, props to the UK for producing quality sandwiches like that on a such a HUGE scale.
Therein lies the problem: the texture of GF breads at room temp. No matter the incantations, or the application of chemical ingredients, no one has conquered the problem of dry, crumbly GF bread. The only solution seems to be the application of heat, whether it be by oven or microwave.
Of course, asking your sandwich vendor to 'wave your sandwich for 45 seconds is to be met with a blank stare.
Oh, well.
It has been a tradition all my life, and in the lives of every Brit I know that on Boxing Day (which is what we call the day after Christmas Day for those of you who aren't British), the family will have sandwiches using leftovers from the Christmas Dinner.
This turkey, cranberry, pigs in blankets and vegetable concoction is a very, very fond memory from my childhood. I'm instantly transported back to a very happy time in my life whenever I eat it.
It's not surprising then that retailers have tried to mimic it in the month or two before Christmas, and that I will readily give them money for this brief glimpse of happiness in the middle of an otherwise miserable, boring or frustrating average working day.
It really reminded me of the sad state of affairs that capitalism has brought us to: we are all tugging at the cart in different directions, not really caring which direction it ends up going in. As long as it is _our_ direction – as long as it is us making the money.
But I also visited particularly several times and as much as I enjoyed my lunch sandwiches the street vendor baguettes were in a whole different league.
If you see Coppers (policemen) taking there lunch break there you know its going to be OK
2. My wife used to work a night shift at a sandwich factory when she was a student.