Which Sandwich

The Earl of Sandwich is purportedly the first to put a slab of meat between two slices of bread.

The existence of the club sandwich comes from a cook named Danny Mears, who worked at the Saratoga Club House in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. during the 1800s.

During the 1920s, Reuben Kulakofsky, who was playing poker at the Blackstone Hotel in Omaha, Nebraska, ordered a sandwich with corned beef and sauerkraut. Bernard Schimme made the sandwich by draining the sauerkraut and mixing it with Thousand Island dressing then layering it with corned beef and Swiss cheese on dark rye bread. He then grilled the sandwich and served it with it a sliced kosher dill pickle and potato chips.

A French myth says croque monsieur was accidentally discovered in 1910 when some French workers left their lunch pails full of cheese and ham sandwiches too close to a hot radiator. The sandwich was originally made with ham and Gruyère cheese, later evolving into other variations like the the croque madame, the croque Provencal, the croque tartiflette, and the Monte Cristo (my favorite).

The grilled cheese sandwich was first widely eaten as a cheap meal during the US Great Depression, when cheese and bread were some of the least expensive food items.

In 1901, Julia David Chandler published the first known recipe for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Peanut butter is not widely consumed in Europe and is almost never mixed with jelly. In the US peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are a staple.

Joe Lorenza added cheese to a popular chopped steak sandwich creating the Philly Cheesesteak sandwich during the 1940s.

The bacon chip butty is made with handfuls of French fries and large pieces of crispy bacon between two slices of soft buttered bread. It was originally considered a working-class meal and was served in English pubs. Yum!

The most likely story of the origin of the  New Orleans po' boy belongs to Clovis and Benjamin Martin, who had a restaurant on St. Claude Avenue during the 1920s. When streetcar drivers went on strike in 1929, the brothers created an inexpensive sandwich consisting of gravy and bits of roast beef on French bread that they served unemployed workers out of the back of their restaurant. A worker would come to get one and the restaurant employees would yell, “Here comes another poor boy.” which eventually transferred to the name of the sandwich, po’ boy.