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The ham sandwich is a common type of
sandwich
A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...
. The bread may be fresh or
toast
Toast most commonly refers to:
* Toast (food), bread browned with dry heat
* Toast (honor), a ritual in which a drink is taken
Toast may also refer to:
Places
* Toast, North Carolina, a census-designated place in the United States
Books
* '' ...
ed, and it can be made with a variety of toppings including cheese and vegetables like
lettuce
Lettuce (''Lactuca sativa'') is an annual plant of the family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but sometimes for its stem and seeds. Lettuce is most often used for salads, although it is also seen in other kinds of food, ...
,
tomato
The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...
,
onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion ...
or
pickle slices. Various kinds of
mustard
Mustard may refer to:
Food and plants
* Mustard (condiment), a paste or sauce made from mustard seeds used as a condiment
* Mustard plant, one of several plants, having seeds that are used for the condiment
** Mustard seed, seeds of the mustard p ...
and
mayonnaise
Mayonnaise (; ), colloquially referred to as "mayo" , is a thick, cold, and creamy sauce or dressing commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, composed salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various other sauces, such as tartar ...
are also common.
Sliced bread, sliced cheese, and sliced cooked ham are very readily available in Western supermarkets and as a result ham sandwiches are quick and easy to prepare. They are a common component of a
packed lunch
A packed lunch (also called pack lunch, sack lunch or brown-bag lunch in North America) is a lunch which is prepared before arriving at the place where it is to be eaten. Typically, it is prepared at home or at a hotel, or produced commercially ...
.
History
Ham and cheese sandwich
The origin of the ham and cheese sandwich has been debated for a number of years by culinary intellectuals. The leading theory as to who first started to produce a ham, cheese and bread dish is mentioned in ''The Larousse Gastronomique 1961''. Here it notes that Patrick Connolly, an 18th-century Irish immigrant to England, sold a bread dish which:
combined the remains of pig, cured and sliced with a topping of Leicester cheese and a kiss of egg yolk sauce (a form of mayonnaise) in a round bread roll. The dish was rather unimaginatively known as a Connolly and is still sometimes referred to as this in some parts of the Midlands in the UK.
In the UK, a common addition to a ham and cheese sandwich is
pickle (a sweet, vinegary chutney originally by
Branston); the snack is then known as a ham, cheese and pickle sandwich.
As recalled by ballpark concessionaire Harry Stevens in a 1924 interview, in 1894 ham and cheese sandwiches were the only food sold in New York
baseball parks;
frankfurters were introduced in 1909.
An Englishwoman, writing in 1923 of her passage through
Ellis Island
Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mi ...
on a trip to the U.S., noted:
I was in fear and trembling, having heard so many tales of the abuse aliens receive there.... The attendants were very kind and not at all rough with us. It was the noon hour... in a little while porters came along with baskets of very good ham and cheese sandwiches and coffee for the grown-ups and milk for the babies.
Richard E. Byrd
Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer and explorer. He was a recipient of the Medal of Honor, the highest honor for valor given by the United States, and was a pioneering American aviator, p ...
took ham and cheese sandwiches on his 1926 polar flight as did 1927
transatlantic fliers Chamberlin and Levine.
Consumption
The
British Sandwich Association
The British Sandwich & Food to Go Association (BSA) was founded in January 1990 and is based in Chepstow
Chepstow ( cy, Cas-gwent) is a town and community in Monmouthshire, Wales, adjoining the border with Gloucestershire, England. It is l ...
says that the ham sandwich is the most popular sandwich in the UK, and a survey they conducted in 2001 saw ham as the second favourite filling behind cheese. 70% of the 1.8 billion sandwiches eaten in France in 2008 were ham sandwiches, prompting a French economic analysis firm to begin a '
jambon-beurre
A ''jambon-beurre'' (; ) is a French ham sandwich made of a fresh baguette sliced open, spread with salty butter, and filled with slices of ham.
Each day in France, over 3 million ''jambon-beurre'' sandwiches are sold, more than almost any othe ...
index', like the
Big Mac Index, to compare prices across the country.
The world's longest ham sandwich was created by butcher Nico Jimenez in Pamplona, Spain in 2009.
Varieties
![Mmm](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Mmm...hot_ham_and_cheese_with_homemade_mustard_%284970848133%29.jpg)
In
French cuisine
French cuisine () is the cooking traditions and practices from France. It has been influenced over the centuries by the many surrounding cultures of Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Belgium, in addition to the food traditions of the re ...
, a
croque-monsieur
A ''croque monsieur'' () is a hot sandwich made with ham and cheese. The name comes from the French words ''croque'' ("crunch") and ''monsieur'' ("mister").
History
The dish originated in French cafés and bars as a quick snack. In the ear ...
is a type of ham and cheese sandwich. It is baked or fried.
In
Brazilian cuisine
Brazilian cuisine is the set of cooking practices and traditions of Brazil, and is characterized by European, Amerindian, African, and Asian ( Lebanese, Chinese and, most recently, Japanese) influences. It varies greatly by region, reflecting t ...
, this sandwich roasted is known as ''misto-quente'' ("hot mix" in literal translation).
The
Cuban sandwich
A Cuban sandwich ( es, link=no, Sándwich cubano) is a variation of a ham and cheese sandwich that likely originated in cafes catering to Cuban workers in Tampa
or Key West,[World Cancer Research Fund
World Cancer Research Fund International is a not-for-profit association related to cancer prevention research related to diet
Diet may refer to:
Food
* Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group
* Dieting, the del ...]
warned in 2009 against parents feeding their children too many ham sandwiches, due to the risk of
bowel cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel m ...
from the processed meat.
A ham sandwich was suspected of causing an outbreak of
swine fever
Classical swine fever (CSF) or hog cholera (also sometimes called pig plague based on the German word ) is a highly contagious disease of swine (Old World and New World pigs). It has been mentioned as a potential bioweapon.
Clinical signs
Sw ...
in the UK in 2000.
Cultural impact
New York State chief judge
Sol Wachtler was famously quoted by
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. (March 2, 1930 – May 14, 2018)Some sources say 1931; ''The New York Times'' and Reuters both initially reported 1931 in their obituaries before changing to 1930. See and was an American author and journalist widely ...
in ''
The Bonfire of the Vanities
''The Bonfire of the Vanities'' is a 1987 novel by Tom Wolfe. The story is a drama about ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in 1980s New York City, and centers on three main characters: WASP bond trader Sherman McCoy, Jewish as ...
'' that "a
grand jury
A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...
would '
indict
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concept often use that of an ...
a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted."
A fictional talking ham sandwich appeared in an online noir serial in the late 1990s, and the publishers sued in 1999 when a similar character appeared in a television advertisement for Florida orange juice, though the suit was withdrawn.
The name "ham sandwich" is sometimes used (particularly by the
New Orleans Police Department
The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has primary responsibility for law enforcement in New Orleans, Louisiana. The department's jurisdiction covers all of Orleans Parish, while the city is divided into eight police districts.
The NOPD has ...
) to refer to a firearm planted at a crime scene by police as
false evidence
False evidence, fabricated evidence, forged evidence, fake evidence or tainted evidence is information created or obtained illegally in order to sway the verdict in a court case. Falsified evidence could be created by either side in a case (inc ...
.
Singer
Cass Elliot
Ellen Naomi Cohen (September 19, 1941 – July 29, 1974), known professionally as Mama Cass and later on as Cass Elliot, was an American singer and voice actress. She was a member of the singing group the Mamas & the Papas. After the group brok ...
died in 1974, and it was widely reported that she had choked on a ham sandwich. This was untrue; Elliot suffered a heart attack in her sleep.
See also
*
List of ham dishes
This is a list of notable ham dishes. Ham is pork that has been preserved through salting, smoking, or wet curing. It was traditionally made only from the hind leg of swine, and referred to that specific cut of pork."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Cur ...
*
List of sandwiches
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
*
Grilled cheese
A grilled cheese (sometimes known as a toasted sandwich or cheese toastie) is a hot sandwich typically prepared by heating one or more slices of cheese between slices of bread, with a cooking fat such as butter, on a frying pan, griddle, or san ...
*
Bologna sandwich
*
SPAM
Spam may refer to:
* Spam (food), a canned pork meat product
* Spamming, unsolicited or undesired electronic messages
** Email spam, unsolicited, undesired, or illegal email messages
** Messaging spam, spam targeting users of instant messaging ( ...
*
References
External links
*
*
{{sandwiches
British sandwiches
Ham dishes
Pork sandwiches
Food combinations