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?
We all know that John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, invented the sandwich, right? Actually, probably not, since bread dates back to ancient Egypt, and pretty much anyone between then and old Montagu could have figured out to stuff something in between it. The first recorded sandwich is usually credited to Jewish leader Hillel the Elder, who in 1st century BC is said to have stuffed some bitter herbs, apples, and other fillings into his matzoh.
The Hillel sandwich is still on the modern Passover menu, as demonstrated above by my buddy at the Flatbush Jewish Center. (Just kidding, I don't know him, I'm just using his photo.) Nowadays it usually combines charoset (a sweet, nutty chutney-like spread) and horseradish on the unleavened, cracker-like bread called matzoh. The sandwich symbolizes the bitterness of Jewish enslavement in Israel and the subsequent exodus and redemption.
So Happy Passover! or Happy Easter, if that's your thing today. Regardless, I hope you can celebrate with a sandwich.
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