Kansas Snapshots by Gloria Freeland - August 29, 2025

By any other name

I fried the chopped onions and then added bacon bits and eggs to the pan. While that mixture cooked, I spread mustard on two slices of wheat bread. Following an “over easy,” I slid the mixture onto one slice and placed the other on top. To make it "special," I cut the sandwich diagonally. Voilà, husband Art’s birthday cake!

Art's not big on cakes - real cakes - but he does love his Denver sandwiches. And he raved about this one!

It seemed fitting because while driving to Wisconsin recently, I saw a sign: "August is National Sandwich Month."

The Wheat Flour Institute made that declaration in August 1952 to promote wheat consumption. But I doubt it was needed. The earliest sandwich might be the Hillel version eaten during Jewish Passover, according to “Discover the History of the Sandwich," a PBS website article. Hillel the Elder, a Jewish leader living in Jerusalem circa 110 BC, suggested eating bitter herbs inside unleavened matzo bread. The sandwich has been with us ever since.

I'm not sure about bitter herbs, but meat-and-vegetable wraps are common in the Middle East today. In Germany, these are called "döners," but they're really a transplant, brought by Turkish immigrants. In France, a "Croque Monsieur" - which literally translates as "Mister Crunchy" - is a fancy ham-and-cheese "sammy" found in most cafés. In Britain, a sandwich is sometimes called a butty - a perversion of buttery - and is likely to be filled with anything from cucumbers to prawns to "coronation chicken" - a concoction created for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.

Our common English-language name can be traced to the 18th century. Supposedly, John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich - the latter being a village in southeast England - asked his cook for a one-handed meal so he could use the other to continue gambling. The result? Sliced meat between two slices of bread that soon was popularly called the "Sandwich."

Sandwiches first appeared in U.S. cookbooks in 1816. By the end of the 19th century, they were acquiring additional descriptors such as "club" for the multi-layered version and the "Reuben," which is one of my favorites. While the origin of this latter name is in doubt, hometown-friend Tom makes a super-delicious version - warm corned beef, a layer of sauerkraut, and Swiss cheese melted over the top and all of it confined by rye bread.

Peanut butter and jelly - PB&J - sandwiches were a staple of my growing-up years on the family farm. Bologna - sliced super thin by local grocer Cliff Bolen - on bread slathered with mayonnaise and garnished with lettuce and tomatoes from our garden was another. Mom, sister Gaila, and I took these sandwiches and Thermos bottles of iced tea out to dad and brother Dave when they were working in the fields. It made for an instant picnic!

Gaila and I lived with mom in the summer of 1965 while she finished her bachelor's degree at Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia. The ham-salad sandwiches we bought from a vending machine seemed so "exotic!"

When Art was young, he often walked the mile to his grandpa and grandma Herrmann's home. One day, when he was about 10, his grandma Alvina made a BLT - bacon, lettuce, tomato. He liked it so much, he asked for another, and then another, and still another. She obliged. He said his grandparents seemed to find it enormously amusing, while he found them very tasty.

Daughter Mariya likes Philly Cheesesteak, pulled pork, and PB&Js. Youngest daughter Katie likes grilled cheese and Vietnamese "banh mi" - short baguettes with crispy crusts filled with sausage, cucumber, pickled carrots, and more. It's a step up from her younger days when she layered Cheetos - "crunchies," as she called them then - between two slices of bread.

Other similar common sandwiches going by alternate names are hamburgers, hoagies, gyros, po'boys and subs. Art's cousin Kris, like many of us Midwesterners, finds ButterBurgers from Wisconsin-based Culver's restaurants hard to resist. But by any other name, it's still a sandwich.

Carl Buddig and Company, a maker of deli meats in Illinois, surveyed the general public and found that 32 percent of people cut their sandwiches into two rectangles, 35 percent likes Art's "special" diagonal cut and 33 percent liked them whole.

Fifty-six percent said their top priority was getting a sandwich created quickly. Friend Bryce may fall into the group they called "sandwich chefs." He describes his sandwiches as "unconventional."

I don't have one favorite, and my sandwiches don't have names, but I ate one almost every work day at lunchtime while I worked in New Zealand, Guam, and Alaska. I learned to make them with the ingredients available to me ... A typical sandwich would include two slices of whole wheat bread (often homemade), lots of Dijon or horseradish mustard, one whole tomato sliced, thinly-sliced pickled red onions, a pile of spinach, slices of sharp cheddar cheese, and then for protein I'd add tofu or lamb or beef or chicken. Rarely, I would add pickles or shredded carrots for more crunch. ... Every one of those was my favorite sandwich.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American eats 200 sandwiches per year, so it's no wonder I thought of this joke:

Three iron workers high on the beams took their lunch break.
"A cheese sandwich again. If I get cheese one more time I think I'll jump off," said the first.
"A bologna sandwich again. If I get one more bologna sandwich, I'll follow you," said the second.
"I'll jump off if I get one more ham sandwich," complained the third.
The next day was the same.
On the third day, the first two were startled when their dim-witted friend actually jumped.
"Didn't he understand we were just venting?" said the first.
"That’s not the weirdest part," said the second. "He packs his own lunch!"