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History of Sandwiches
6/4/2008 10:29:37 PMThe first recorded sandwich was made by the famous Rabbi, Hillel the Elder, who lived during the 1st century B.C. A poor man, but a great scholar, he began the Passover custom of sandwiching a mixture of chopped nuts, apples, spices, and wine between two matzohs to eat with bitter herbs. This sandwich is the foundation of the Seder and is named after him. But matzoh, being unleavened bread, is not absorptive of sauces and juices as today's sandwich has become.

Before the Renaissance and the invention of the fork, any object that moved between plate and mouth, lifting cooked food and its sauce without spills was a necessary utensil. From the Dark Ages to the Renaissance, bread was an integral part of a table setting. Thick slices of bread, called trenchers, were set on wooden plates (also called trenchers) to soak up the sauces accompanying pieces of meat. The word comes from the French verb trenchier or trancher, which means to cut. Each trencher was eaten at each meal, and a new one made for the subsequent meal by simply cutting off new a slice from the loaf. If the meal was formal and elaborate, trenchers might be changed more than once during the meal. The advent of the fork, however, dictated that using fingers to lift food was bad manners. The trencher became passé.

John Montagu (1718-1792), the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, revived the concept of bread as utensil giving us the name we use today. Montagu was First Lord of the Admiralty and patron to Capt. James Cook who explored New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, and Polynesia. Capt. Cook named the Hawaiian Islands after him, calling them the Sandwich Islands. Legend holds that Montagu was addicted to gambling, so addicted that he gambled for hours at a time at a restaurant, refusing to get up for meals. To believe this legend, we can only imagine that he was so intent on scooping up winnings that he could not listen to the growls in his stomach demanding food. Supposedly, he ordered his valet to bring him meat tucked between two pieces of bread. His fellow gamblers, no doubt looking for a lucky charm, began to order "the same as Sandwich!" The original sandwich would have been nothing more than a piece of salt beef between two slices of toasted bread. Whatever the truth of the legend, the name sandwich is inscribed for all time.

In her book, English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David tells us that while France and Italy remained true to the freeform bread, the British were quick to adapt to making a fine loaf of white bread in tins. This ensured uniformity and slices that were evenly cut. In addition, bread made in a tin is less crusty and offers more dough to absorb juices or spreads and hold ingredients together. The British loved their sarnies, the nickname given to sandwiches. Another slang word for sandwich, one that predates sarnie, is 'butty' as in jam butty, chip butty, ham butty etc., and that was a contraction of 'bread and butter'. That came from northern regions, possibly Yorkshire.

In 1840, the sandwich was introduced to America by Elizabeth Leslie (1787-1858). In her "Directions for Cookery", she offers a recipe for ham sandwiches that she deemed them worthy to be a main dish. In the 1900's, with the industrial revolution underway, bakeries began to sell pre-sliced bread. The American public jumped at the ease of making a sandwich. The sandwich as institution was born. Human beings, being adventurous, have developed the sandwich into both a quick and easy meal, and an art form. How long would it take for us to reconfigure the possibilities: we toast the bread or serve it plain; we pile high the sandwich with the maximum ingredients, or keep it simple with one or two.

Make your own Roast Beef Sandwich
6/4/2008 10:21:46 PMMake this, and you'll never be satisfied with a roast beef sandwich in a deli ever again, I promise. you'll also find that you've become dissatisfied with the state of prepared cold cuts in general. Cooking is much like drinking tequila - once you try the good stuff, everything else tastes like cardboard.

Unless you, um, like that sort of thing. Anyway.

There are hundreds of ways to cook a roast, but this is my favorite. The advantage to this particular way is that it requires little to no work, can be used on any cut of roast and, when finished and sliced and nicely dressed, makes the best roast beef sandwiches I've ever had. You can plate it with veggies and potatoes and gravy if you've the mind to and it's awesome (and I'll get to noding that eventually), but in sandwiches, it excels.

I'm not even gonna bother with an ingredient list because it'd be laughably short, so. Here's the plan:

Set your oven to 375F. While that's warming up, take your roast and cut eight holes in the top where the fat lives. Stuff those holes with slivers of garlic. Then rub the beef down with olive oil - the oil will brown the outside nicely and give the spices something to stick to. Rub every inch of the outside of the fucker with salt, pepper, and fresh thyme. Fresh thyme - the stuff costs fifty cents for a huge handful and it'll last you ages and the dried stuff burns in the oven, so avoid it.

Put the roast directly on the oven rack with a pan underneath to catch the drippings, with the fat side of the roast facing up. You can cook it in a pan, too, which is better if you're making veggies with it that you want commingling with its juices and whatnot, but doing it this way takes a lot of the fuss out of turning it (real men cook with...convection?) and you'll get a more tender roast this way because gravity's a wonderful thing - as it cooks, the fat will drip down through the meat and keep it moist.

Cook the roast for thirty to thirty-five minutes on 375F - this'll brown the outside and make the rind all nice and crispy. Then turn the heat down to 225F.

I've never been a big fan of meat thermometers (beef is usually done when it smells right, y'know?) but for this, it's necessary. Cook the roast until its core temperature is around 135 - 140 degrees. This'll give you a nice, pinkish but not bloody, roast. Depending on the size and fattiness of your roast, this will take between an hour and two. Pull it out of the oven and put it on a board. Let it sit for 15 minutes or so.

Now. Slice that bitch, as thin as you can. You can get cheap deli slicers designed for a home kitchen, but if your kitchen is anything like mine you have a hard enough time storing the basics without some ungainly diabolical machine hogging all the counter space. Use a very, very sharp knife, (watch your fingers!) and let it sit for 45 minutes or so to let the slices cool down. You can throw it in a plastic bag in the fridge if you're in a rush, but I wouldn't - ideally, this stuff should be eaten at room temperature and the most hassle-free to assure that state is to, you know, leave it in a room for a bit.

Once it's cooled down some, make your sandwiches. You can make them any way you want of course, but do me a favor and try it my way first. The trick is to not mask the taste of the meat with unnecessary condiments and toppings - you want just enough extra stuff to compliment and moisten the meat without overpowering it. To that end, put a few slices of beef on fresh (seeded) rye bread with a moderate amount of mayo (or, for kick, some of that creamed horseradish sandwich spread. Using pure horseradish is a bad, bad idea) fresh sliced red onion, and salt and pepper.

A quick note on the bread: there's a bit of an art to this. If the beef is room temperature, you d

The Beef in Culture
6/4/2008 10:23:45 PMIn Europe, the English are particularly associated with beef-eating, which is why the French call them les rosbifs (the roast beefs). Another theory for the derivation of this name is a French mockery of the English: being relatively fair in comparison to the French, they easily get sunburned, resulting in red skin. The British reciprocally call the French "frogs" on account of the French dish of frog legs.

According to research carried out by the Museum of London amongst Roman rubbish dumps in London, it seems that Britons acquired their first taste of roast beef from the Roman military as the city expanded under their occupation[citation needed]. Despite this, it seems not to have become popular amongst the population in general until the Middle Ages or later, and only became a 'national caricature' in the 18th century.[1] William Shakespeare suggests a reputation of the English to gorge on beef, when in the play Henry V, act 3, scene 7, before the Battle of Agincourt he has the Constable of France say

"Give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils".

There is also a (much parodied) song called The Roast Beef of Old England.

From: Wikipedia

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