Sandwich Guru: “I’ve known The Club Sandwich, since 1903, silly boy.”
1903 – The oldest recipe for the club sandwich was published in the Good Housekeeping Everyday Cook Book, by Isabel Gordon Curtis in 1903. The recipe states:
Club Sandwich – Toast a slice of bread evenly and lightly butter it. On one half put, first, a thin slice of bacon which has been broiled till dry and tender, next a slice of the white meat of either turkey or chicken. Over one half of this place a circle cut from a ripe tomato and over the other half a tender leaf of lettuce. Cover these with a generous layer of mayonnaise, and complete this delicious “whole meal” sandwich with the remaining piece of toast.
1930′s - Some historians think that the sandwich was originally only a two-decker and that it originated aboard the double-decker “club cars” of our early trains in America that traveled from New York to Chicago in the 1930′s and 1940′s.
James Beard (1903-1985), American chef and food writer wrote the following about the Club Sandwich:
. . . it is one of the great sandwiches of all time and has swept its way around the world after an American beginning. Nowdays the sandwich is bastardized because it is usually made as a three-decker, which is not authentic (whoever started that horror should be forced to eat three-deckers three times a day the rest of his life), and nowadays practically everyone uses turkey and there’s a vast difference between turkey and chicken where sandwiches are concerned.
