How the sandwich consumed Britain | Hacker News Reader

How the sandwich consumed Britain

theguardian.com

108 pointsirb137 comments

As a Frenchman, I have to say it: I was in England two years ago, got those sandwiches around the cities I visited (London, Margate, Brighton) in bookshops, train stations, street vendors and to be honest, they're very good.

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.

I had some very fresh and tasty sandwiches I cafes in Dublin Ireland.

As a Brit now living in the US, I can't help but feel like the popularity of packaged sandwiches in the UK is largely driven by the fact that people in England are terrible at sandwiches.

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.

I don't know how long you've been living in the US, but that simply does not ring true any more.

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.

Indeed, M&S revolutionised the sandwich in public purchase, and lots of small shops did that too, especialy in university towns like Oxford, and London. Then PRet a Manger came along and did more, and other more mainstreamish places have followed along, if not as well. Sandwiches in the UK have never been better.

Decent home made sandwiches is an art that isn’t common in the UK for certain. However they limp simple things have two characteristics that the others don’t have: they will taste no worse after four hours banging around on public transport and they are extremely cheap. To keep yourself in a healthy supply of good sandwiches with variety means that you have to purchase a large variety of expensive things in and expend a lot of time. Time and money are lacking. Ergo the prepackaged ones are a good trade off especially under the “meal deal” banner.

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 :)

You use such a cheery tone to describe your misery! How typically British!

The "meal deal" was always confusing to me. Specifically I refer to the customary inclusion of crisps in the meal. This doesn't compute for a German.

> 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?

I’d rather have a German breakfast for lunch but that’s impossible here. I have some German blood, from Essen, which is a town of great eaters apparently. Doritos it is instead. Although I’ve taken to getting popcorn with my lunch now. It’s actually quite nice!

Of course I queue, silently and obediently, while posting about how cold it is on the messaging app of the hour :)

Funny, I hate American sandwiches. I usually ask for half meat and then throw some more of the meat out. If I wanted to eat just a stack of sliced ham that’s what I’d do!

Well, I'm American, and that's what I want to eat. The bread is just there to give some way to hold it.

As someone who's grown up with Swiss bread, this is exactly the bane of my existence with most food outside continental Europe. Can't live with plain tasting bread. Luckily Japan is slowly getting the hang of it, so I'm saved for now.

Thanks to our Polish friends (I assume), London has some decent options for bread nowadays. Lots of them even sourdough and decent crust.

Well, the main issue is the terrible bread. US sandwiches have too much stuff in though.

Some US sandwiches, sure, but not really. A quarter pound of meat is a decent serving for a sandwich, and load that up with veggies and only put at most, two sauces, and only on one side (the top side preferably so the lettuce will be pressed against it. If you include cheese, two slices is enough most of the time.

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.

A quarter pound of meat in a sandwich is far too much for a normal sandwich. We're not talking about burgers here, we're talking about regular sandwiches. You really don't need that much meat - unless it's roasted/carved chicken/turkey and that's really the exception.

I totally agree that you should have at least half of the sandwich thickness be veggies... and no skimping on the mayo and salt & pepper. This is where most sandwiches fall off the wagon.

A quarter pound of meat is typical for a sandwich shop because if you're going to a sandwich shop for a sandwich, then you're ordering a meal. If you're only making part of a meal out of it or just a snack, feel free to use small squares for bread and only a couple of slices of deli meat and complement the sandwich with a soup.

Source: actually worked in a sandwich shop on the deli slicer where we prepacked the meat for sandwiches. Most employees at other sandwich shops I talked to used basically the same amount of meat with only one typically using a fifth of a pound and another typically using half a pound.

I think most of us Brits would consider a sandwich with a quarter pound of meat in it to be an enormous amount of food.

Personally, I don't see sandwiches as a large meal at all. They're relatively light compared to say a meal I'd eat in a restaurant. Even if they're not always light on the calories.

Sandwiches shouldn't be a large meal. But they should be nutritious and filling enough to feel satiated without feeling like you need to sleep it off.

I just tried salt and pepper on my leftover turkey sandwich. You just changed my life.

Hurrah! Of all the comments I've had on Hacker News. This is my favourite! Doesn't it make all the difference? :)

Blasphemy!

Homemade UK sandwiches are worse than that. In my experience, when most people say "butter" they mean margarine. Shop bought sandwiches are more likely to contain real butter.

As an aside, they do not have margarine on them because there are no margarine brands on sale in the UK any more, and haven't been for nearly a decade: http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=10421&start=0&sid=c1e...

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.

There are still many non 100% butter products. Here is Utterly Butterly's ingredients list:

Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed, Palm), Water, Buttermilk (10%), Modified Maize Starch, Salt, Emulsifier - E471 Sunflower Lecithin, Preservative - Potassium Sorbate, Acid - Lactic Acid, Colours - Annatto, Curcumin, Flavouring

I'm not sure what most pre-made sandwich retailers use. I would guess whatever was cheapest...

That would be a "spread", not a margarine. The difference is down to fat content.

That's just an arbitrary distinction to avoid calling things "margarine". Margarine had a bad reputation in the UK as something only poor people eat. In other places like the US it doesn't have this stigma and so people feel fine referring to it without euphemisms like "spread".

It's not just a semantic difference, it's normally a chemical one, and even in the US, very much a legal one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine

The EU has very strict definitions of this, and in the UK (for health reasons I expect), there is no market appetite for a spread that contains partially hydrogenated oils.

In the US, regulations are much more lax and substances that are considered unfit for mass market consumption in Europe (typically for health concerns), such as trans fats, are widely available in the US.

You can dress this up as a "stigma" or a "euphemism", but I call it reasonable consumer protection law.

Partially hydrogenated oils or trans fats are not required for a spread to be legally considered margarine. It's possible to make margarine without them. See https://alphaalgae.wikispaces.com/file/view/trans+fat+reduct...

The labeling requirement is theoretically protecting consumers from being ripped off by paying for water when they were expecting fat, but the manufacturers have convinced consumers this is actually a good thing ("reduced fat"). The real reason all spreads in the UK now have <80% fat is most likely cost reduction.

Will everybody on HN please stop assuming the "law" is as it is in their local jurisdiction, and why posting a technical industry article on different fats is meant to convince me I'm wrong in establishing that in the UK (the country in which this thread's food is considered), there are specific terms used for specific products, I can't fathom.

Here's is the current legal definition of "margarine" in the EU (including the UK, as Brexit hasn't happened yet): http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2...

"Products in the form of a solid, malleable emulsion, principally of the water-in-oil type, derived from solid and/or liquid vegetable and/or animal fats suitable for human consumption, with a milk-fat content of not more than 3 % or the fat content.

Margarine

The product obtained from vegetable and/or animal fats with a fat content of not less than 80 % but less than 90 %."

No mention of partial hydrogenation or trans-fats. The only reason UK spreads are not "margarine" is because they do no contain enough fat.

Ohh, that really sounds worse.

Until you start buttering your bread, I have no desire to eat an American sandwich (with the obvious exception of the excellent reuben).

Even then there is a risk that they will use the 'sweet cream' butter that is the most common type in the US. See https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/14619/why-is-but....

IMHO the popularity of packaged sandwiches in the UK is largely driven by three factors:

(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.

No offence, but (1) hasn't been true for literally decades now, showing you to be a out of touch about the UK, which begs the question are you even vaguely right about 2 or 3?

Check out Paul Robinson's comment for a general refutation. Given the popularity of 'artisanal'-type portable food preparations in both the UK and the US I think it unlikely the market could get away with such standards even at the low-end.

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:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec

He discusses how the packaged sandwich industry has improved in his perception based upon a single store (M&S). I was discussing the IMHO base reasons for the popularity of packaged sandwiches. Chalk and cheese. Regardless, on cost as a driver we explicitly concur.

>He discusses how the packaged sandwich industry has improved in his perception based upon a single store (M&S)

Britain has a lot more food chains with national reach than the US does. M&S has a huge share of the 'food to go' market in the UK.

But in any case, the overall quality of prepackaged sandwiches definitely has improved over the past couple of decades, as I can attest from personal experience.

Americans eat plenty of equally cheap and gross foods for lunch.

I would personally much rather eat a prepackaged sandwich than something from this:

http://8-food.com/product.php

IMO the scandal here with these triangular containers is the 'three slice' sandwich, for example:

https://img.tesco.com/Groceries/pi/441/5051140265441/IDShot_...

The naive customer felt that he was getting two traditional sandwiches but course he only actually got 1.5

Same. In Ireland we have loads of places to get sandwiches freshly made. When I moved to London I was shocked by the lack of options. Greggs etc - what a pile of horrible crap

Huh? London is swarming with Pret a Mangers, and Greggs doesn't have much of a presence here.

While there is nothing particularly special about a Pret a Manger sandwich, it is made on the same day that you buy it.

There are a ton of delis in London that will make you any sandwich you want... Someone who doesn't know that is just a tourist

In the city as a whole, sure, but I'm not usually willing to travel very far to get a sandwich.

Travel where? Don't seek a chain (Greggs?!) - you'll be disappointed, just look up.

I mean walk more than a few blocks from my current location, wherever that is.

I'm not sure what you mean by "just look up".

I mean to imply that unless you're following directions to a chain you've heard of, your nearest deli or cafe is probably visible if you 'just look up'.

No, not really. London doesn't have a high density of high quality independent cafes/delis. The majority are worse than Pret.

Reminds me of "Look Up More", a stunt by Improv Everywhere from years ago: https://youtu.be/RSBXS1npqNI

You are correct. London has a few Sandwich places that most people know about, Obviously Pret, then maybe The Earl of Sandwich, and Birley Sandwiches. These are all pretty average at best. Max's Sandwich Shop in Stroud Green, or Monty's Deli are worth checking out. All the people below obviously haven't ever eaten a decent sandwich.

I agree very much - the US does this way better. Even in the chain restaurants and bars, a sammich in the US is a feast compared to most in the uk.

Making food "bigger" doesn't necessarily make it better.

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.

No it doesn't, however a decent few slices of meat make for a far better sandwich than what we get here in many places - a mere sliver.

I'm a Brit living in Canada and I concur, in general the British are terrible at sandwiches. However, I would say that outside of Subway and arguably Mr. Sub, North Americans aren't a whole world better at making them.

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.

Italian delis run by Italians often have very good and tasty sandwiches some are Americanized (pastrami on rye) but you find great Italian sausages and peppers, Italian meatballs, as well as traditional American Reuben sandwiches. But you gotta find the places that make their stuff in-house, rather than buy wholesale from some provisioner.

Razzano's in Glen Cove, is a good example, if you're on long island, NY. Molinari in SF is okay.

I had an amazing meatball sandwich the other day on ciabatta with cheese. It wasn't British enough though (on account of it being Italian), so I added some crunch by putting some ready salted crisps in it. Delicious ;)

Bay Cities in Santa Monica and Gioia's in St. Louis are two of my favorite.

One thing I have found, and hadn't realized until I had left LA, is that the quality of the bread can really elevate the quality of a sandwich.

The quality of bread is everything. Portuguese buns are the best, put them in the oven to crisp them off at 350 for 10 minutes. You get the light fluffy inside and a nice crispy outside. One thing Americans aren't great at is your definition of "crusty" bread. Crusty is supposed to mean that when you bite into it, the outer crust crunches before you get to the soft fluffy bread inside. If it doesn't crunch like chips (crisps) crunch, it's not crusty, it's just bread.

True; bread is pretty important. In SF sourdough is pretty prevalent --and that's ok, but it's not my preference. It's too tough --at times a bit like leather, so I prefer other types of crunchy loaves. Dutch crunch or baguette-style or even kummelweck.

> I would say that outside of Subway and arguably Mr. Sub, North Americans aren't a whole world better at making them

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:

https://www.jimmyjohns.com

Those are actually pretty gross-looking from a British point of view. We generally don't have so much sliced meat and mayo in our sandwiches.

Also Subway is available in the UK anyway...

Subway? (You seem to be saying that it's an example of a good sandwich place.) It's arguably the US fast food chain that manages to be much worse than it seems it ought to be. I'm not sure any widespread chain is especially good. And certainly nothing pre-packaged. I go to way too many conferences and I've pretty much just stopped taking lunch boxes with sandwiches.

Ironically I wasn't saying that Subway is good at all. I'm saying that in my experience, they're the only ones that are merely tolerable. Pretty much like my impression of tea down there. You guys are horrendous at both. I bring my own tea and cup with me when I come down there now because trying to get you guys to make tea during road trips is ridiculous. It's horrible trying to find anywhere that will make a cup that I can bear. When I find myself thinking "A Tims, a Tims, my Kingdom for a Tim Hortons," you know it's bad.

LOL at the downvotes, I guess the truth hurts XD

Subway is complete garbage. Try potbelly’s.

Potbelly's is the best chain I've run into, and here in New England pretty much every pizza place and convenience store will make you a drool-worthy Italian (or grinder or hero, depending on who owns the place).

    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.

Reading this in 1992 I was entertained by Douglas Adams's whimsical storytelling talent. But now with this bit of historical context I see there was also, as in many of his stories, a social commentary which had passed me by as an American.

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?

We do make a distinction. While a burger is clearly meat between two bits of bread, it's not usually considered a sandwich.

McD's was certainly not widespread until later in the 80s, IIRC, and White Castle has never had a presence here AFAIK.

White Castle also isn't present across most of America either. Subway is the largest fast food chain in the world so it would be more interesting to hear what sort of presence they have.

Subway are everywhere in the UK. Having colonised most town centres they’re now popping up in garage forcourts (service stations).

To be honest, it is far from clear that these commercial burgers are anything remotely like meat. And not sandwiches in our lexicon, certainly, no more than these shops are anything like restaurants. They might be food-like substances, rather. https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for...

While McDonalds wasn't widespread there were regional burger / fast-food places around in the UK at that time.

For example I had a small birthday-party, which I still remember fondly, at a Wimpy burger-place back in 84 or so.

I certainly remember Wimpy, it was great back then - you got your food on a real actual plate :)

Something which is disappearing at the high and the low end of the market these days!

Just started to come in around then before that we had Wimpys as one comedians said we took the idea of American fast food and made it worse.

One of my small pleasures in life is timing the daily visit to my local supermarket just when all the sandwhiches have been marked down from £3 to 75p to clear them.

You'd think you'd get tired of the "all day breakfast triple", but nope!

What time of day does that happen in your neck of the woods? Asking for a friend...

Typically around 14:30 onwards, essentially any sandwich that's gonna expire that day and didn't shift by 2:30 usually ends up discounted by then.

I’m glad I’m not alone in enjoying the marked down pricing of a breakfast triple. There is nearly a fight to the death on the sandwiches here if they are in short supply.

Said supermarket has also started selling Burgers right next to the sandwiches, the Breakfast Triple has been sorely challenged by the presence of the "Cheese Burger with Bacon" for £2.89.

Happily sometimes those are also discounted down to sub £1.

The show Ben-To is based on seizing the moment when that discount happens.

Read that as "all day breakfast tripe" and thought surely black pudding would make more sense..

One of the things I noticed moving to Canada was that every drug store (rough Boots equivalent) and grocery store did not have a vast selection of packaged sandwiches. Having lived off them for work lunches for years I was initially at a bit of a loss for what to eat.

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.

When I first started traveling under my own steam around Europe, it took me a while to realise that sandwiches, which seem so obvious as to be universal, are such a British thing. Wandering around a foreign city, expecting to be able to just grab a sandwich from almost anywhere and continue sightseeing, only to discover that sandwiches (at that time) just didn't exist was a jarring experience.

Same here - I moved from Scotland to Finland and I still catch myself thinking "I'll pop into this corner shop for a sandwich".

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..

Maybe it's my cultural heritage, but for me a sandwich - at least the one I eat on a regular basis - has to be made from fresh ingredients.

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.

If you check the ingredients list you'll find they don't use many preservatives because there is little need, and so use of them would just increase costs.

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.

Sandwiches in supermarkets generally stay on the shelf for a day or two. They don't contain any preservatives AFAIK (except perhaps in the bread).

With the volumes they are pushing, there is no chance that a sandwich has been on the shelf for weeks.

Maybe you are being ironic. My point was about chemicals.

Maybe you're being ironic, but there are few if any preservatives in decent supermarket sarnies. Look at the list of ingredients and the sell-by dates.

I think most supermarket sandwiches are on the shelves for about 2 days max. On the second day if they've not sold then they cut the price drastically to sell them.

You don't want to eat chemicals? What's next, not wanting to eat atoms?

Be sarcastic if you want, but atoms are no joke.

Did you know that some most atoms are toxic in their pure form? You'd have to be crazy to try a spoonful of random atoms. While there are plenty of combinations of atoms that can be consumed safely, it's not true for all of them. You need to be very careful about what kinds of atoms you're eating.

Also, "atom" is the root of the word "atomic." You know--as in atomic bombs? That alone should help you to reconsider whether you want to eat these things!

The above clearly proves that "not wanting to eat atoms" is a perfectly reasonable opinion.

I love a good sandwich, but would hesitate to call any of the sandwiches from pre-packed places good. Or from Greggs or Pret for that matter.

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 love sandwiches and like the idea of packaged sandwiches, but unfortunately packaged sandwiches in the US tend to be soggy, and that ruins them for me. Usually the bread, but sometimes the meat and cheese is even wet and that makes me queasy.

I wonder if the Brit's have figured out something that the local marts in the US haven't?

Actually it's in the article - there are tomato varities used specifically because they leal less water, and the sandwich makers talk about "barriers" like butter and mayo to keep the bread from getting wet.

So short answer - yes, they have figured it out.

I tried a lot of prepackaged sandwiches when I lived in London, all of them sucked. Even the more expensive ones from Starbucks were bad.

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 don't think so. Make a sandwich, wrap it up in plastic, and it's probably going to be soggy. Some people just have higher tolerances for mediocre food.

It might be unpopular opinion but I totally hate those prepacked triangle sandwitches. Mainly because bread is so bad. When I first time moved to Ireland I was astonished how much people eat them and consider them a regular lunch.

I've lived in London for a few years and recently went on a trip to Dublin. I found there to be more sandwich shops (and for some reason doughnut shops) there. While London has better food overall, there is no doubt that Dubliners know how to make better sandwiches. Even a dingy looking sandwich place near a bus stop made sandwiches that were a step above anything I have ever had in London.

Having recently been diagnosed with coeliac, one of the things I’m really missing is being able to grab a tasty sandwich for lunch. Sometimes there are gluten free alternatives, but generally the texture is terrible.

Amen, brother, sing it!

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.

Whether the packaged sandwich industry is setting its sights on dinner, it has long since set its sights on Christmas dinner. A work colleague this year inspired me to update one of my Frequently Given Answers, which I first put up ten years ago. The trend was already observable back then.

* http://jdebp.eu./FGA/christmas-sandwich/

Well, they're not going after Christmas Dinner.

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.

Having visited Britain, this was about the only food you could buy and consume that felt at least somewhat British.

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).

We have a whole bunch, I won't cover Chicken Tikka Masala or Madras because it could be argued that we've really just appropriated them due to our love of Indian food - and they really are delicious.

- 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.

You're forgetting all the offal based dishes (black pudding, white pudding, liver, etc.), the various ways we will repackage pork (scratchings, sausage rolls, etc.) and the regional specialities (black peas, jellied eels, etc.)

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.

Sure, whatever, I'll concede that :P However, we're not exactly renowned for our huge beef cow raising operations. In fact we were a laughing stock for quite a while because we couldn't eat beef on the bone because of the whole BSE thing. As a Brit in Canada, I'm still regularly reminded of this, despite it being sorted for almost 3 years - mostly as banter, but still.

The French nickname 'rosbif' for the English goes back to the Napoleonic wars thanks to our historic association with it.

According to the RSPCA, the number of beef breeding cows in the UK was around 1.6 million in 2013, which is one for every 17 households. I'd say that's pretty respectable, albeit about quarter the rate of the US.

We taught the French how to cook beef (OK sort of).

Originally, the French boiled their beef but during a siege of Paris by British troops, they noticed that our troops cooked theirs over the fire/griddle. The rest is history.

The word beef is derived from boeuf. Biftek is derived from beef steak. So you have a borrow word that has really done the rounds!

In most languages, the name of the meat is the same (or similar to) the animal it comes from.

In English, the name of the meat was derived from the French aristocrats who were running the country hundreds of years ago, and while peasants referred to animals by name, the aristocrats referred to the food by the name they knew it as - which is why in English we have two names for these things, but other languages generally only have one.

It's funny, since I turned to farming, I find myself referring to the meat I eat as the name of the animal rather than those you see on the packaging in the grocery store. It started off as humour and kind of stuck. Cowburger, pig chops... oddly I still call chicken and turkey the same thing :P

Reading that comment was like re-reading Dzur (by Steven Brust). Suddenly I'm hungry.

Britain’s national food is “pub grub”. City restaurants aspire to the international, but pub food is a constant: only the quality differs, from cheap factory-farmed stuff at carvery pubs besides West Midlands roundabouts, to artisan farm food at gastropubs in the Cotswolds.

CTM Chiken Tika Masala Is one though that's a bit of a hybrid.

Try: toad in the hole, yorkshire puddings.

Roast beef with potatoes, parsnips and sprouts. In the Napoleonic wars, the French rude nickname for Brits was 'rosbif'.

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.

jugged kippers

kedgeree for breakfast (-:

Interestingly, you still can't buy a pre-made sandwich from a supermarket in Australia. We have Subways and sandwiches at cafe's and corner stores, but actually barely any "ready to eat" meals at our supermarkets.

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?

Insufficient population density, small market, high average distance to market, low "eat out" frequency (but increasing), short commercial hours, arguably higher freshness / quality standards.

...yes you can? Not all of them, but eg the Coles in Pyrmont stocks a healthy range of sangas for the convenience of nearby office dwellers.

I ordered a sandwich in Cann River and got a plate of sandwich ingredients as an unassembled sandwich. This happened again in Melbourne. I'm skeptical of your whole country's sandwich making skills.

The way the company representitives talked about "breaking into dinner" was almost dystopic. How could you be proud to think of disrupting an evening meal with a convenience item for your own profit? It's a damning sign of the way the workforce is made to get by if a need for quick food manages to take over even the time away from the office.

No kidding, and I am surprised this is the only comment on here pointing this out. This article is really quite sad, except for the small historical tidbits.

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.

I lived in the UK for several years and lived on sandwiches for lunch at work, primarily from Pret a Manger (BLT and Thai Chicken mainly).

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.

Yes going to a Proper cafe run by what looks like extras from EastEnders is both cheaper and a better experience.

If you see Coppers (policemen) taking there lunch break there you know its going to be OK

1. I love ‘shop bought’ sandwiches.

2. My wife used to work a night shift at a sandwich factory when she was a student.

Probably also due to the reduction in staff canteens as Thatcherism over took the UK

I like optimism in the article, but raise of sandwich is nothing to celebrate.

We figured it out many decades earlier - we call our ubiquitous convenient sandwiches ‘hamburgers’.

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