6 Weird Sandwiches People Used To Eat
According to popular legend, the English aristocrat John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, was engaged in an all-night card game in 1762 when he became distracted by hunger pangs. Not wanting to stop playing, he instructed his servant to bring him a snack of beef between two slices of bread, allowing him to satiate the twin desires of filling his belly and raking in more dough.
While he was hardly the first person in history to consider eating food in this fashion — Montagu may have been inspired by culinary creations in Turkey and Greece — the earl’s idea caught on across English high society and led to the honor of having his name affixed to this particular bread-based meal.
The sandwich soon spread to other social strata across Europe and in the American colonies, its popularity underscored by increasing appearances in cookbooks through the 19th and 20th centuries. However, numerous once-popular foods have failed to survive to the present day, and the same goes for certain old-fashioned sandwiches; some of them are just too bizarre for modern palates. Here are six sandwiches that were (mostly) pushed aside by modern diners in favor of tastier options.
Oyster Sandwich
In the U.S. in the 19th and early 20th centuries, oysters were a popular sandwich filling. Sandwiches known as “oyster loaves” were featured in Mary Randolph’s cookbook and guide The Virginia Housewife in 1824, and numerous entries in Eva Green Fuller’s Up-To-Date Sandwich Book in 1909. The first and most basic recipe from Fuller’s book instructs readers to supply a dash of tabasco sauce, lemon juice, and oil to chopped raw oysters (without specifying measurements), slather the mixture on white bread, and then top it off with a lettuce leaf.
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Yeast Sandwich
A sandwich aficionado by the name of Barry Enderwick has dug up a trove of old cookbooks to recreate forgotten specialties on his "Sandwiches of History" social media channels, and the yeast sandwich is one such bygone dish. Yeast is typically used for the processes of fermenting beer and leavening bread, and it's unusual to find it as a featured ingredient of a dish. But in the 1930s, there was a push on the part of Fleischmann's to promote the nutritional benefits of its product, resulting in an entry in Florence A. Cowles' 1001 Sandwiches (1936). Cowles calls for five drops of "table sauce" to be added to a cake of compressed yeast, with the resulting paste spread on a cracker or bread. Regardless of whether the table sauce was meant to be ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, or another ingredient, this sandwich did little to help the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to enhance American cravings for yeast-filled meals.
Pickle Sandwich
This one's actually a bit of a misnomer. Yes, there are (chopped) pickles in here, but the instructions in 1916's Salads, Sandwiches and Chafing Dish Recipes also call for mixing the brined vegetable with whipped cream, mayonnaise, and grated horseradish, and adding chopped cooked beef to the mixture atop buttered bread.
Popcorn Sandwich
Popcorn is a popular snack, so why not pair these bite-sized goodies with yummy buttered toast to produce an extra-delectable dish? That seems to have been the idea behind the recipe in 1909's Up-to-Date Sandwich Book, except the dish also calls for readers to add "five boned sardines, a dash of Worcestershire, and enough tomato catsup to form a paste."
Toast Sandwich
Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like. According to the bestselling Beeton's Book of Household Management from 1861, the recipe simply calls for inserting a piece of cold toast between two slices of buttered bread and seasoning it all with salt and pepper (although the author, Isabella Beeton, helpfully suggests that it could be livened up with slices of meat). While clearly a relic of an era of different tastes, the toast sandwich was revived by the United Kingdom's Royal Society of Chemistry in 2011, and has also surfaced on the menu of the Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, England.
Mashed Potato Sandwich
This creation, also known as the "Greatest Man Sandwich in the World," is attributed to the one and only Gene Kelly. While it's unclear where the recipe first appeared, or whether it was invented or adopted by the famed performer, it is clear that this sandwich is not for folks looking to limit their carbs. The recipe requires a thick layer of leftover mashed potatoes to be spread on buttered French bread and topped with onion slices, mayonnaise, and a hearty dose of salt and pepper; the product is then browned in a broiler. According to one recipe, it was to be enjoyed with the "nearest mug of beer."
