Between the Bread

San Francisco's Slow Club is aptly named for a lazy Saturday brunch spot. Several weeks ago, before the weather turned icky, Andrew and I found ourselves with a City CarShare car on a sunny day, so we settled on an outdoor table for two and a strict definition of brunch: lunch for him, breakfast for me.

Andrew ordered a roast beef sandwich classically condimented with horseradish and unexpectedly served on focaccia. More than an inch of thin-sliced beef kept it from being to bourgie. I, on the other hand, ordered Slow Club's standout eggs benedict, with a perfectly poached egg on grilled country bread.

Eggs benedict reinforces my belief that an open-face sandwich isn't really a sandwich. If we start calling every dish featuring something on bread, what keeps eggs benedict from being counted?

I love getting questions from readers, especially when they pertain to sandwich history. This one comes from loyal reader BettyPuff:

"Dear sandwich lady, Can you tell me what the origins of putting butter on a ham sandwich are? I always wonder about the butter."

This is a tough one, since there isn't one definitive reason that almost all early American and British sandwiches feature butter. But butter is undeniably the condiment of choice in 19th century sandwich recipes, such as Eliza Leslie's ham sandwich from 1836.

I don't know what old-timey sandwich makers had against mustard, but I have my theories about the butter. Before they were called sandwiches, these meals were simply referred to as "bread and cheese" or "bread and meat," so butter was a logical addition to what was really a souped-up version of toast.

Also, consider the bread. Before the advent of presliced bread and enzymes added to make it fluffier, sandwich bread was too delicate and crumbly to contain anything but cold, tidy ingredients. Presumably the butter helped soften the bread without making the sandwiches soggy.

Since sandwiches of this era were more of a polite snack for wealthy indulgers than an everyday convenience food, they were designed to be as easy to eat as possible. Most were delicate, crustless, and involved mixing cheese or egg with other ingredients to make a tidy paste. The softer and easier to bite, the better, and in this case, butter made the sliced ham and bread better — that is, softer to the teeth.

Flickr User Robert S. Donovan

On a recent weekend getaway to Yountville and Inverness, we stopped for breakfast at the Fremont Diner in Sonoma. From the outside, it looks like an old-timey roadside diner. But inside, it's a modern practitioner of sustainable cooking, using farm-fresh ingredients, whole-hog cooking, and local produce.

I think the diner may even have its own farm, and I spied chickens milling about the picnic table area. That didn't stop us from ordering the special "snack" sandwich featuring fried chicken and pickles on a grilled bun. We were too stuffed from breakfast to eat it right away, so Andrew carried it around in his pocket for a few hours. (It's like the little slider was designed for a pocket!) Even after its long journey, it tasted outstanding.