Upon entering a new
country, you’re bound to experience some culture shock; however, it’s not
always unpleasant. In the case of British sandwich culture, I’ve found it quite
palatable (ha). As soon as I arrived in the UK, I noticed every corner shop,
grocery store, and pharmacy had a selection of pre-made sandwiches. At first, I
was dubious of the little triangles gleaming through cellophane in their
display cases. How can a premade sandwich
be any good? Won’t it be soggy? How do I know it’s fresh? I wondered.
If not for the
sheer ubiquity of these sandwiches, I never would’ve given them a chance. Alas,
the egg & cresses, BLT’s, and ham and cheese toasties finally beckoned to
me. You see, life moves fast in London; with ICLC classes meeting all over the
city, the grab-and-go quality of a sandwich is pretty unbeatable. Much to my
surprise, my first sandwich, ringing in at just over a pound, was delicious.
It wasn’t until
further investigation that I realized how important, both culturally and
economically, the sandwich is to the U.K. The sandwich industry here is worth £8 billion annually, equating to about 11.5 billion sandwiches sold every year. Many
manufacturers have mastered sandwich making down to a science, even going so
far as to engineer varieties of tomatoes with thicker cell walls to avoid
sogging up a sandwich.
While the sandwich
culture came as a shock to me, it has long had its place in the U.K. In fact, the
sandwich was invented in 1762 by the Earl of Sandwich so he could
carry on gambling while he ate; perhaps this gave precedent to the great
sandwich-loving culture of London today. In sum, sandwiches fill our stomachs
with convenience and familiarity, things that are not always easy to come by in
our rapid-pace society.
