Sandwich

Sandwich (pronounced sand-wich)

(1) Two or more slices of bread or the like with a layer of meat, fish, cheese, etc between each pair.

(2) To insert something between two other things.

(3) A type of engineering or construction where flat materials are joined in layers.

1762.  Named after John Montagu (1718-1792), Fourth Earl Sandwich, a bit of a gambler who, during marathon sessions at the tables, would eat slices of cold meat between bread rather than rise for a meal.  However, the earl’s biographer suggested his subject was a serious chap, committed to the navy, politics and the arts and the sandwiches were actually eaten at his desk at the Admiralty but the legend is much preferred.  It was in his honor Captain James Cook (1728-1779) named the Hawaiian Sandwich islands in 1778 when Montagu was First Lord of the Admiralty.  The family name is from the place in Kent which in the Old English was Sandwicæ (sandy harbor; trading center).

There is doubt whether the sandwich became so-named as early as 1762 because the first documented account of the Earl’s culinary innovation was written in 1770 but it certainly caught on.  The sandwich board, the two-sided mobile advertising carried on the shoulders, is from 1864.  The Wall Street Journal once described the sandwich as "Britain's biggest contribution to gastronomy" but, given the parlous reputation of the rest of their cuisine, the WSJ may have been damning with faint praise.  Regardless, while Sandwich may have lent his name, the historical record suggests sandwiches have been eaten since bread was first baked, pre-dating the earl by thousands of years.

Portrait of John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1783) by Thomas Gainsborough (c 1727-1788), National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

John Montagu was one of the more interesting chaps to sit in the House of Lords.  Rich and well-connected, he was a libertine in the milieu of the aristocratic debauchery of the eighteenth century, his country house described by a contemporary as “the scene of our youthful debaucheries, the retreat of your hoary licentiousness.”  There’s never been any suggestion Sandwich was more depraved than many of his companions in self-indulgence but he certainly fitted-in.

In his lifetime, the earl’s fame came not from the eponymous snack but his long affair with Miss Martha Ray (1746-1779), a most becoming and talented young singer.  It’s never been known when first they made friends but she lived with him as his mistress from the age of seventeen (he was then forty-five), the relationship producing nine children.  The concubinage of Miss Ray he  enjoyed while his wife was suffering from mental illness and while it’s not recorded if her condition was in any way related to her husband’s conduct, given he conducted an affair also with his sister-in-law, there must be some suspicion.

Montagu's behavior attracted the interest of many, including John Wilkes, a prominent satirist who wrote a number of pieces critical of the earl’s politics and ridiculing his (not so) private life.  Montagu’s revenge was swift.  Wilkes didn’t write only publicly-published satire, he also had a small circle of socially elite subscribers to his other literary output.  That was pornography, and the earl was a subscriber.  To discredit Wilkes, Lord Sandwich rose in the House of Lords and read extracts from Wilkes’ The Essay on Women which he prefaced by telling their lordships “…it was so full of filthy langue (sic) as well as the most horrid blasphemies”.  The earl did not exaggerate and even today the words would shock and appall their lordships although it must be admitted, it's always been a place where members easily are appalled.

The vengeance backfired.  The House of Lords ruled his speech a breach of procedure which sounds a mild rebuke but in that place it was a damning censure.  It also provoked Wilkes who responded with tales of Sandwich’s “debauchery, miserliness and lack of good faith” and a biography published in the 1760s labelled him “an arsonist and thief”.  His reputation never recovered.

Portrait of Martha Ray by Nathaniel Dance-Holland  (1735–1811)

Miss Ray’s end was sadder still.  Sandwich gave her a generous allowance and obtained a flat in Westminster so she had somewhere to live during those times when, for whatever reason, she couldn’t stay in his house.  He also introduced her to a young soldier, James Hackman (circa 1752-1779) who became obsessed with her and soon turned into what would now be called a stalker.  In 1779, Hackman resigned his commission to join the church and it seems he and Ms Ray may have had a brief liaison but she declined his offers of marriage, apparently because she thought his social status and financial means inadequate.  Not handling rejection well, Hackman remained infatuated, become increasingly jealous and continued the pursuit.

One evening in April 1779, he followed her to the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden where he shot her dead, apparently under the impression she had taken another lover, which may or may not have been true.  Immediately after the murder, Hackman attempted suicide but succeeded only in wounding himself and was arrested.  Two days after she was buried, the Reverend Hackman was sentenced to be hanged and within the week he died on the Tyburn gallows at a public execution before “a large crowd”.

With Lindsay Lohan on location in Ireland for the shooting of the film Irish Wish, Westport Café The Creel created a sandwich to note the event.  The Lindsay LoHam includes 'nduja sausage, Monterey Jack cheese, mixed grated cheddar, caramelized onions and, naturally enough given the name, ham.  The film is scheduled for release in 2023; the sandwich is available for a limited season.

Sandwich is a town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, its population 20,675 at the last census.  It is the oldest town on Cape Cod and in 2014, Sandwich turned 375 years old.  Sandwich has a police department.  They are the Sandwich Police.

One noted concoction is the muffuletta, a thick, round sandwich similar to a hero, typically containing ham, salami, and cheeses and topped with an olive salad, a specialty of New Orleans.  It seems first to have been served in the late 1960s, the name from the Sicilian dialect, from the Italian muffoletta (a round hollow-centered loaf of bread), from muffola (mitten), from the French moufle.  In New Orleans, among the muffuletta cognoscenti, there is a heated faction and a room-temperature faction.