Recipes, Historical past and Tradition, by Nawal Nasrallah

All of us purchased into the idea that the inventor of the sandwich was John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich of England (1718 – 1792). The story goes that he was the one who began the pattern when he requested for his meal to be served between two layers of bread. John Montagu was an avid gambler, or a workaholic, in response to one other account, who selected to forgo the standard correct table-dinners that might have interrupted no matter it was he was doing and, extra importantly, to maintain a hand free. 

The hypothesis is that quickly sufficient individuals round him began to mimic him, to have that very same ‘factor’ that Sandwich had, and that was how meals consumed this manner acquired the title ‘sandwich,’ with the primary documented English sandwich recipe showing in the 1773 English cookbook The Girl’s Assistant for Regulating and Supplying her Desk by Charlotte Mason:

Properly, so far as naming goes, that is all believable, however the fourth Earl of Sandwich was  undoubtedly not the primary one to have his meal this manner. Meals will need to have conveniently been eaten this manner from historic occasions within the Close to East, the place bread was baked in quite a lot of methods: flat ones and risen and spongy ones. They have been variously made leavened
and unleavened, massive and small, and plenty of extra. Relying on how they have been made, there was the clay oven tannūr for the leavened flat bread, the bigger communal brick oven for baking puffed and spongy bread, and the metallic plates (saj) for the big and skinny bread varieties.

Excavated stays of a brick oven furn in historic Mesopotamia Tell Brak

A baking skinny sheet of flat bread, known as marquq, shrak, lawash/lavash, and many others.

Thus it follows that in a area so impressively wealthy and various in making bread, it ought to come as no shock to be taught that the documented historical past of the sandwich and its tradition within the Close to East started a lot sooner than the eighteenth century in Europe. Whereas the primary English sandwich recipe appeared in the1773 Girl’s Assistant, within the surviving medieval Arabic cookbooks many sandwich recipes have been included as early because the tenth century. Actually, based mostly on the references and descriptions of sandwiches in medieval Arabic
literature, their origin might be pushed even additional again to the eighth or ninth century, which was the start of
the golden age of the Baghdadi delicacies. As an example, in al-Masʿūdī’s tenth-century Murūj al-Dhahab, a poem by the well-known Abbasid poet of Baghdad Ibn al-Rūmī (d. 896) describes assemble a sandwich, which he calls wasṭ (وسط), wherein the stuffing is put between two layers of bread. Right here is how he describes it: 

    You, seeker of scrumptious meals, take a few high-quality breads, spherical and thick,

    The likes of which nobody has seen, Slice off the highest crusts, 

    so that you simply make them skinny.

    Unfold on one, finely minced grilled rooster, delectable and delicate, 

    which a mere puff would soften.

    On this organize traces of almond intersected with traces of walnut.

    Let its dots be cheese and olive, and its vowels mint and tarragon,

    Now take boiled eggs, and with their dirhams [egg white] 

    and dinars [egg yolk] the wasṭ adorn.

    Give it a dusting of salt, however not a lot; simply what it wants.

    And examine it together with your eyes for a second or two, 

    for the eyes have a share in it, too.

    Have a look at it appreciatively till your eyes have their fill, 

    then cowl it with the opposite bread, and eat it with pleasure.

AS for recipes, the earliest ones happen in Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq’s 10^th-century cookbook, Kitāb al-Ṭabīkh, chapter 23 (my English translation, Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens). On this chapter, 5 recipes are given with a bonus meals poem. In these 5 recipes, sandwiches are made in three other ways:

1. A skinny flat bread much like at present’s marquq (lavash) is unfold with layers of finely chopped substances (meat, greens, herbs, and many others.), after which seasoned and tightly rolled. The sandwich is served sliced into pinwheels, known as bazmaward, a reputation of Persian origin. It was additionally known as muyassar wa muhanni ميسر ومهني (i.e. pleasant and straightforward to eat).   

2. One other kind of sandwich is named wast (pl. aswat اوساط); it’s much like the one described in Ibn al-Rimi’s verses.

3. The third kind is named wast mashtour (وسط مشطور), which is an open-faced sandwich. This one, al-Warraq tells us, was made by at least the Abbasid gourmand Prince Ibrahim b. al-Mahdi himself (d. 839), who was half-brother of Hārūn al-Rashīd. The recipe describes how the crusty edges and prime of a brick-oven bread are first sliced off, and the face is unfold with a fermented condiment, known as binn, after which slathered with walnut oil. It’s toasted on a grill set on a brazier, and after smearing it with yolk of soft-cooked eggs, and grated cheese if wished, it’s good to eat. Right here is the recipe because it happens in al-Warraq’s Arabic version:

What’s much more thrilling is the truth that Ibn al-Mahdī supplemented his recipe with a brief poem describing it, which in impact is an inventive illustration of the dish itself — second greatest to at present’s digicam photos. Right here is his poem:  

What a scrumptious sandwich on the brazier I made, 

        slathered with binn and walnut oil!

Aromatic and shining, as if the binn I used 

       with ambergris and musk was embalmed.

Of nigella seeds I put what it wanted, 

        as for fennel, I did sprinkle some. 

Olive oil I made certain so as to add, 

        for it offers a luscious coating and a saffron-glow.

Smeared with egg yolks, with cheese sprinkled, 

        trying like speckled embroidered silk.  

As colourful as striped silk it appears, 

        exuding musk and camphor.

The style, luscious as pure honey, 

        for the very best of fragrant spices I did use.

Here’s a recipe so that you can strive: 

It’s a recipe for making the pinwheel sandwiches, bazmāward, from tenth-century Kitāb al-Ṭabīkh by Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq, chapter 23. It was specifically made for the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil, d. 861: