Sandwich

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For other uses, see Sandwich (disambiguation).

Template:Unreferenced Image:Sandwich.JPG Image:Italian Sandwich.jpeg A sandwich is a food item typically consisting of two pieces of bread between which are laid one or more layers of meat, vegetable, cheese, or other fillings, together with optional or traditionally provided condiments, sauces, and other accompaniments. The bread is often either lightly buttered, covered in a flavoured oil when baked, or oil is added into the sandwich to enhance flavour and texture.

Sandwiches are commonly carried to work or school in lunchboxes or brown paper bags (sandwich bags) to be eaten as the midday meal, taken on picnics, hiking trips, or other outings. They are also served in many restaurants as entrées, and are sometimes eaten at home, either as a quick meal or as part of a larger meal. As part of a full meal sandwiches are traditionally accompanied with such side dishes as a serving of soup (soup-and-sandwich), a salad (salad-and-sandwich), or potato chips and a pickle or coleslaw.

1 Variations
2 Origin
3 Mathematics
4 Examples
- 4.1 Sandwich styles
- 4.2 Fillings
5 External links

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Variations

The term "sandwich" has been expanded—especially in the United States—to include items made with other types of bread, such as rolls and focaccia. Thus hamburgers and "subs", for example, are called "sandwiches" in the United States, although not in the midwest, south or western states or most other English-speaking countries (since they are not made with slices of bread from a loaf).

The nearest traditional Scandinavian equivalent is generally known elsewhere as an "open" or "open-face" sandwich, i.e. a single slice of bread with meat, fish, cheese, etc. as a topping, although the sandwich with two slices of bread has become more commonplace in recent times. This open-face variation is also prevalent in Russia, where it is known as a buterbrod (бутерброд, from the German word for "buttered bread").

In India, sandwiches are often vegetarian, the most common type being the vegetable sandwich.

In the UK, particularly in the north of England they are known, informally, as 'butties' or 'sarnies'. This is particularly the case with sandwiches including freshly-cooked bacon and butter, though other forms of 'butty' use other ingredients and mayonnaise. A sandwich filled with chips (US: french fries) is known as a 'chip butty'. In Britain roughly 1.8 billion sandwiches are purchased outside the home every year. In French countries you might see this referred to as un Belge: a Belgian (sandwich). In Scotland, sandwiches are called 'pieces'. One Australian slang term for sandwich is 'sanger' (or 'sanga'). In South Africa sandwiches are sometimes called 'sarmies'.

In the U.S., some children, and a few adults, pronounce the word sandwich as sammich, either out of difficulty pronouncing the word, or as a form of baby talk or stereotyped child's speech. Blue Collar member Larry The Cable Guy uses the pronunciation sammich and in one of his bits in Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie. Comedian Dane Cook, as part of one of his comedy bits, uses the pronunciation sangwich, most likely for gag value.

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Origin

The sandwich was named after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, an 18th-century English aristocrat, although it is unlikely to have been invented by him. Indeed a form of sandwich is attributed to the ancient Jewish sage Hillel the Elder, who is said to have put meat from the Paschal lamb and bitter herbs between two matzos during Passover.

It is said that Lord Sandwich was fond of this form of food because it allowed him to continue playing cards at cribbage while eating, because he did not want to get his cards sticky, from eating meat with his bare hands. The name of the earldom comes from that of the English town of Sandwich in Kent—from the Old English Sandwic, meaning "sand place". Nowadays some types of sandwich are too unwieldy to be held in one hand, thus defeating Montagu's original purpose, and must be eaten with a knife and fork, or at least with both hands. In some countries it is considered proper always to use cutlery to eat sandwiches.

However, the generally recognised way to eat a sandwich is with your hands. Eating a sandwich with cutlery defeats the purpose of this specific snack food.

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Mathematics

The sandwich theorem, frequently used in calculus and real analysis, states that if a real-valued function (the filling) lies everywhere between two other real-valued functions (the bread) which both converge to the same limit, then the "middle function" also converges to that limit.

The ham sandwich theorem can be used to prove mathematically that a single cut can divide two pieces of bread and the filling each exactly in half.

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