Sandwiches of History

Barry Enderwick got kicked out of college. Then, in the early aughts, he became the first graphic designer for a little start-up media company you may have heard of: Netflix. But today, the Internet knows Barry as the guy behind the beloved and wildly popular "Sandwiches of History" accounts, where he recreates historical sandwich recipes from old cookbooks and rates and reviews them. He just released his first cookbook, "Sandwiches of History the Cookbook: All the Best (and Most Surprising) Things People Have Put Between Slices of Bread https://geni.us/SandwichesofHistory," and he's taking the show on the road, including a stop at WBUR CitySpace https://www.wbur.org/events/979345/sandwiches-of-history-live later this month. But first, Barry joined Ben and Amory from his kitchen in the Bay Area to make the triple-decker sandwich that graces the cover of his debut cookbook, and to talk about how Sandwiches of History came to be. To quote Barry's signature phrase, we think you should give this episode "a GO!" Show notes: Sandwiches of History on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sandwichesofhistory/, TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@sandwichesofhistory?lang=en, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/sandwichesofhistory, and Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/SandwichesofHistory/ "Sandwiches of History the Cookbook: All the Best (and Most Surprising) Things People Have Put Between Slices of Bread https://geni.us/SandwichesofHistory" Sandwiches of History: Live! at WBUR CitySpace https://www.wbur.org/events/979345/sandwiches-of-history-live

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for Endless Thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 0:45Speaker 02

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• 1:15Amory Sivertson?

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 1:24Speaker 04

  So we've got our toasted bread, right?

• 1:26Amory Sivertson?

  Yes, we've got our toasted bread.

• 1:28Speaker 04

  So we're going to butter up all four slices.

• 1:30Amory Sivertson?

  I think we're buttered. Are you buttered?

• 1:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm buttered. I'm buttered, baby. Let's go.

• 1:37Amory Sivertson?

  Ben and I are in the WBUR studios with cutting boards, plates.

• 1:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  We're chopping. We're plating.

• 1:44Amory Sivertson?

  And merely a dozen ingredients in front of us, about to do one of Ben's absolute favorite things.

• 1:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  We're sandwiching. But this is no ordinary sandwich. It is called The Sophisticated Club.

• 2:03Speaker 04

  It's from Good Housekeeping's book of breads and sandwiches in 1958. And when I first read this, I'm like, what? Three martini lunch spawned this recipe?

• 2:15Amory Sivertson?

  That is our guide on this sandwich making adventure, Barry Enderwick.

• 2:20Speaker 04

  I make sandwiches from old recipe books and plus them up for the modern palate if they have potential.

• 2:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  And this is an adventure because this club sandwich recipe from 1958 is a triple decker, an insane triple decker.

• 2:35Speaker 04

  One slice of this, you want to put your cheese. Now we're going to put on, I believe, our ham. Next, we put on our slice of pineapple. Just put our peanut butter on top of that. Sprinkle the unsweetened coconut on that. And now we add our bacon, slice of tomato, put on our avocado. Whoa, this is a tall boy.

• 2:53Amory Sivertson?

  Long before we were making a giant sandwich with Barry Enderwick from kitchens on opposite sides of the country, I was hearing his voice every night in my home kitchen, where my husband, usually right after dinner, fires up one of his favorite Instagram channels.

• 3:10Speaker 04

  Oh, hello. Welcome to Sandwiches of History. Today, from the all-new Purity Cookbook of 1967, we're going to be making the salmon and peanut sandwich.

• 3:18Amory Sivertson?

  Sandwiches of history.

• 3:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  History, history, history.

• 3:22Speaker 04

  Okay, to drain boneless and skinless salmon, we add grated onion, parsley chopped, chopped green bell pepper, and of course chopped peanuts.

• 3:29Amory Sivertson?

  Every day, yep, seven days a week, at noon Pacific time, Barry posts a video of himself making a sandwich in his home kitchen in the Bay Area. A different sandwich recipe every day, taken from the pages of an old cookbook.

• 3:45Speaker 04

  Today, from Conservation Recipes of 1918. Today, from the Chafing Dish of 1912. Today, from a Cook's Own Cookbook of 1832.

• 3:53Ben Brock Johnson?

  Some of these sandwiches of yesteryear are pretty out there.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  The jellied chicken sandwich, number one. The yeast sandwich. We're going to be making the sardine loaf sandwich.

• 4:05Amory Sivertson?

  Others are surprisingly simple.

• 4:08Speaker 04

  It's a plain peanut butter sandwich, watered down with milk. We're going to be making the cheese sandwich. We're going to be making the lemon sandwich.

• 4:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Barry makes and tries all of them.

• 4:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  And does he have a catchphrase? You know he does.

• 4:25Speaker 04

  Okay, let's give the tomato a go. Let's give this sandwich for travelers a go. Okay, let's give this hot honey sandwich a go. Go, go, go, go. A go.

• 4:36Amory Sivertson?

  The concept behind Sandwiches of History is as clean cut as sliced bread.

• 4:41Speaker 04

  I, I, I was just curious about these, uh, old recipes and like, what were people eating back then that they thought were the bee's knees? And would it be something that would be good for us to bring back?

• 4:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  But the meat of the matter, Barry's execution and his devotion to daily sandwich making, has gotten him a following, a big one. Hundreds of thousands of people on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, all tuning in to find out which Sandwiches of History Barry thinks are the bee's knees.

• 5:13Speaker 04

  You look at the ingredients and it's like, it's kind of bonkers. And then you taste it and you're like, how is this, how is this working? This is, how is this working?

• 5:20Amory Sivertson?

  And leading to a sandwich recipe renaissance of sorts. That's brought strangers from all around the world together in the name of sandwiches and could only have happened on the internet.

• 5:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm Ben Bonmi Broccoli Johnson.

• 5:38Amory Sivertson?

  I'm Amory Sliced Avocado Sivertson, and you're listening to Endless Bread.

• 5:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, coming to you from the meat, the meaty insides of WBUR, Boston's NPR sandwich meat.

• 5:54Amory Sivertson?

  Or meat alternative.

• 5:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mmm.

• 5:56Amory Sivertson?

  Whichever which is your jam or jelly.

• 6:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  And peanut butter and gel. What do you say, Emma?

• 6:04Amory Sivertson?

  Let's give today's Sandwiches of History episode.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  A go.

• 6:22Amory Sivertson?

  Hello Barry.

• 6:23Ben Brock Johnson?

  Barry.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 6:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Barry Enderwick showed up to our video call just like he shows up on social media.

• 6:29Amory Sivertson?

  Glasses, a button down shirt, the small amount of non-beard hair he has left, a little fluffed up in the back. An unpretentious, little goofy, good, clean, funkle type.

• 6:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  He really is. He's like, perfect because a sandwich is not pretentious. You know what I mean? A sandwich is just like, what's up? I'm here. This is me. This is what I am. And I'm delicious. And I feel like that's Barry's vibe too. You know?

• 6:57Amory Sivertson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  Behind him, there's a recognizable backdrop, his actual kitchen, again, non pretentious. He's got some beige walls, white cupboards and a painting of a chili pepper hanging just over his left shoulder.

• 7:10Amory Sivertson?

  When I first saw you on the screen, I thought that maybe I had left my Instagram page open and that there was just one of your videos stills up. But then it was you and I was

• 7:19Speaker 04

  No, it's me.

• 7:20Amory Sivertson?

  starstruck. So I was excited as a fan by marriage will say. But what do you get when you put my good old friend Ben, the person I previously thought was the world's greatest sandwich enthusiast, together with Barry Enderwick, the internet sandwich expert, historian, modern day godfather, all of the above?

• 7:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  I feel like I literally just teared up.

• 7:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  I love it so much. I'm so happy. This is my happy place.

• 7:49Amory Sivertson?

  You get some budding tears of joy, but also a lot of questions.

• 7:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Do you have a favorite bread? What's your favorite like classic chip and sandwich combo? Why do people put so much frickin meat in sandwiches? Who is a famous person that you would like to have a sandwich with? And what sandwich would you make for them or with them?

• 8:10Amory Sivertson?

  All good questions.

• 8:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 8:13Amory Sivertson?

  And we'll get to some of them. But we're gonna start.

• 8:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  Was a sandwich involved in you getting kicked out of college?

• 8:19Amory Sivertson?

  Right here.

• 8:22Speaker 04

  No, unfortunately, it was just me not attending classes and getting good grades. So it was funny, I was, I went to San Diego State for two and a half years and I was undeclared. And I finally decided, you know what, I want to be a graphic designer. And I did that for exactly one semester and was asked to leave.

• 8:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  But Barry did become a graphic designer. He was, in fact, the first graphic designer hired by a little startup that was just getting going in the early 2000s. You might have heard of it.

• 8:49Speaker 04

  I worked at Netflix from 2001 to 2012 in the marketing department, helping to scale it from a small startup to an international streaming brand.

• 8:58Amory Sivertson?

  And eventually Barry and a colleague at Netflix started their own marketing and business consulting company, which he still runs today and which means he can afford to tune out the usual social media best practices when it comes to the brand he's now best known for, sandwiches of history.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  I decided I did not want to follow the advice of posting three to four times a day, doing dances, jumping on trends. I was just gonna make a sandwich, post it at noon Pacific time every day. We'll just see how it goes and that way I don't burn out on this.

• 9:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  But how it's going for Barry is not how it started.

• 9:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  It was 2018 and Barry, a known foodie and sandwich lover, was cleaning up some files on his computer when he came across a PDF, a PDF of a book a friend had sent him called The Up to Date Sandwich Book.

• 9:47Amory Sivertson?

  Up to which date? It was published in 1909.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  You know, the second you publish something that says the up to date, it's already out of date, which is hilarious to me.

• 9:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  It has a half-life. As soon as you publish something like that, it's a guarantee that it's got a half-life.

• 10:02Speaker 04

  Exactly. So, but I started looking through them like, some of these sandwiches sound okay, some of them are weird.

• 10:07Amory Sivertson?

  But Barry's not afraid of a weird sandwich, so he decided he was going to make them for an audience.

• 10:14Speaker 04

  I just thought it would be fun to do on social media to try these sandwiches from 1909, see what they thought was so wonderful. And, you know, is it something that we could, we would enjoy today? Beautiful oysters.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  All right. And in this cookbook, there's absolutely no real measurements. So I'm just sort of winging it.

• 10:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is the first sandwich Barry made from the up to date sandwich book of 1909. And the first one he posted to Instagram, the oyster sandwich.

• 10:46Speaker 04

  Olive oil, lemon juice, Tabasco-like substance. We just sort of, uh, boy, that looks unappetizing. And I love raw oysters, but boy, howdy.

• 10:57Amory Sivertson?

  The review, boy, howdy.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  Textural nightmare. It was awful.

• 11:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  That sounds pretty gross. That sounds pretty gross.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  Highly unrecommend that.

• 11:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  Much like Barry's first actual sandwich of history, his sandwiches of history account wasn't a hit at first either. Back then, Instagram videos had to be square. They couldn't be more than a minute.

• 11:22Amory Sivertson?

  Or you could put them in stories, but then you'd have to move them to highlights to preserve them. It was a whole thing.

• 11:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  Boy, howdy.

• 11:29Amory Sivertson?

  So Barry let his early videos just sort of linger on the vine until TikTok came along and he gave them another shot.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  And it took off. It like, it was crazy how much it took off. And then I thought, well, okay, there is a there there. Maybe I'll start making new ones. Welcome to sandwiches of history. Welcome to sandwiches of history. Welcome to sandwiches of history. Today we're doing a sandwich from 1908 or 1918, depending on who you ask.

• 11:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Today Barry has upwards of 300,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram. What's his secret sauce?

• 12:01Amory Sivertson?

  Is it his avuncular turns of phrase?

• 12:04Speaker 04

  Yes, it is. I'm well aware like Delaware. There is a couple of hitches in the giddy. I bust out my trusty slice of sliced.

• 12:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  Is it a morbid fascination with what combos people used to put between sliced bread?

• 12:14Speaker 04

  The cream cheese and pineapple? Sure. But the mustard was really strong, really pronounced.

• 12:20Amory Sivertson?

  Little a column A, little a column B. But it's probably also just the undeniable, unwavering, universal love for sandwiches. A love that likely goes back way before John Montague, the fourth Earl of sandwich, supposedly invented them in the mid 1700s.

• 12:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  The story goes that one day, Montague didn't want to pause his card game to eat. He asked for someone to bring him roast beef between two slices of bread so he could eat one-handed.

• 12:50Amory Sivertson?

  Clever, if true, but is this really the origin story for the sandwich?

• 12:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Let's ask the former Netflix marketing guy.

• 13:00Speaker 04

  He did a great job of branding, got his name to be the name of the category. But, you know, people have been putting stuff between bread for longer than that, I'm sure. I did a rojamo, which I hope I'm pronouncing correctly. It's Chinese, it's from 200 B.C.

• 13:16Amory Sivertson?

  Whoa, nice.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  And it's basically a crumpet. And it's, right now, they make it with pork belly more often than not, but it was made with beef and all these spices because it was developed along the spice route. And they just slot that into this crumpet-like bun, if you will, but it's cut.

• 13:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  People also call me basically a crumpet, Emery.

• 13:33Amory Sivertson?

  Ben Brock Crumpet Johnson. How could I forget?

• 13:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  But even if you give Earl of Sandwich a crum a credit, he probably couldn't have foreseen just how imaginative people would get with sandwiches.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  You could mash up cuisines, you can mash up textures, you can change out the bread, you can change how the bread, is it soft, is it toasted, is it dipped in egg and milk and fried?

• 13:59Amory Sivertson?

  Or is the whole sandwich just bread? Like the toast sandwich from Mrs. Beaton's book of household management from 1965.

• 14:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  It is, in fact, a piece of toast between two untoasted pieces of bread. What's the, what's the story there?

• 14:14Speaker 04

  It is, but it also has butter and salt and pepper. And this is one of those recipes that you find in a section in a cookbook that would be recipes for invalids. That's what they would, they would say. And it's basically for people who have upset systems or were sick. It was something that they could eat and hold down. I thought it was, it sounded ridiculous until I tasted it and it actually was not bad.

• 14:39Amory Sivertson?

  Not bad, but not great. Barry gives each sandwich he makes a score out of 10. The official sandwiches of history score for the toast sandwich.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  Interesting texture. Okay, I'm gonna give it a three and a half. Plus up with the thin slice of beef. I'll give that a five.

• 14:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  Barry loves to plus up sandwiches, as in he'll add an ingredient to an old sandwich recipe, some flavor or texture that he thinks is missing.

• 15:08Speaker 04

  It was better, wasn't spectacular.

• 15:10Amory Sivertson?

  But Barry always starts by executing each historical recipe as faithfully and precisely as possible.

• 15:18Speaker 04

  Did I mention there were no amounts given in this recipe? Yeah, good fact.

• 15:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Which means sometimes you gotta wing it.

• 15:24Speaker 04

  There's also recipes where like, you know, take two tablespoons of grated cheese. Great, what kind? What kind of cheese should I use? And then I have to be cognizant of like, American cheese, you know, before a certain date, like 1916 or 1912, just meant cheese from America, not American cheese like we know it now.

• 15:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah. The people in the past are like, what are you, some kind of Sultan or something? You have different kinds of cheese? We got cheese and no cheese.

• 15:54Amory Sivertson?

  You had sliced bread?

• 15:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  Hey, before 1928, that would have been a mind blowing experience for them.

• 16:01Amory Sivertson?

  You know what they seemingly had in slathers, though? Butter. Almost all the American sandwich recipes Barry's encountered from before World War II made liberal use of it.

• 16:12Speaker 04

  Every single slice of bread had butter on it. And then it started to go, started to decline because of the war and the rationing and using use of margarine. And by the 60s, it seems to have gone away entirely. Whereas in the UK, it's still done almost everywhere.

• 16:28Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow.

• 16:30Speaker 04

  The other thing is that sandwiches weren't necessarily a lunch food. They might be like part of a multi-course meal. They might be a tea sandwich. So they were lighter fare.

• 16:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  But lighter fare isn't exactly what Barry is looking for in a sandwich.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I want it to be a meal. Um, you know, every once in a while I'll make a dill pickle and peanut butter sandwich because I grew up eating them. Um, and it's, I think it's quite good, but it's, that's not really a full sandwich sandwich. Um, I'd hate to give them up, but if I had to, because I requested the, the full sandwich, then so be it.

• 17:05Amory Sivertson?

  I've never even heard of that. That sounds great.

• 17:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, you've never heard of that?

• 17:08Amory Sivertson?

  No, I grew up on, I grew up on cream cheese and jelly sandwiches.

• 17:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hmm, I could never do that. That didn't work for me.

• 17:15Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 17:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  My parents went into it.

• 17:16Amory Sivertson?

  To each their own.

• 17:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 04

  What's interesting is the dill pickle peanut butter sandwich, I thought my brother, uh, maybe invented it or whatever. No, it's in, it's in these books from like 1916, 1909. Like pickle peanut butter sandwiches have been around for a long time.

• 17:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah. Listen here, Bob, you're giving the morning paper and a pickle and.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  Peanut butter sandwich.

• 17:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 17:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  You also review chips.

• 17:42Speaker 04

  Welcome to the chips. My name's Barry. Let's get in the chips.

• 17:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  What's your, what's your favorite like classic chip and sandwich combo?

• 17:50Amory Sivertson?

  I told you we'd come back to some of Ben's burning sandwich questions.

• 17:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Burning.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  I think a tuna salad sandwich and a salt and vinegar potato chip are a fantastic combo.

• 17:59Amory Sivertson?

  Ooh.

• 17:59Speaker 04

  Love that. Cause then you get a little sharpness, uh, you get the crunch and then it offsets the, the richness of the, the mayonnaise and the tuna salad.

• 18:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Why do people put so much fricking meat in sandwiches? Like one thing that consistently bothers me about the sandwich assembly of America is that we love to stuff so much meat into a sandwich. And I'm like, no, it should be equal, like your watery crunch should be equal to your meat content. Like, does that make any sense to you?

• 18:33Speaker 04

  I totally know what you mean and I totally agree with you actually. Um, I, it seems to me like we've, we, every once in a while I'll see a sandwich and it's just stunt food. You just put way too much meat in there. So someone will take a picture of it and put it on Instagram. Um, and for me, it's about balance. I want the balance between textures. I want to balance between flavors. I want, I want, I want balance in a sandwich. When I go get a sandwich, I don't want more.

• 18:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  Thank God for you. Thank God for you.

• 18:58Amory Sivertson?

  You can't see his face up close, but he's just looking at you with such admiration.

• 19:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  I love you, man. I already love you.

• 19:10Amory Sivertson?

  Coming up, Ben and I make our own sandwich of history.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  You can put anything between two slices of bread, three slices of bread, or in our case today, four slices of bread.

• 19:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  And the philosophical sandwich questions get deeper. Any other hot debates around sandwiches that you would like to come out on the record with?

• 19:33Amory Sivertson?

  Hot dog in a minute.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

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• 20:44Speaker 06

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing

• 20:58Amory Sivertson?

  Maybe lower than meal pricing. All right, we know a couple of parameters our sandwiches of history influencer Barry Enderwick upholds. A sandwich should be a meal ideally, and it's got to have a balance of textures and flavors. Other than that.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  I don't have a lot of purity tests when it comes to sandwiches like I'll do open face sandwiches. I'll do, I'll do just the Halifax Donair, which is, you know, kind of like a shawarma where it's wrapped in a pita. Just because I don't want to not eat delicious food.

• 21:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  And as Barry pointed out, sandwiches come in all forms, in part because they come from all countries. Every cuisine has a take on the sandwich.

• 21:38Amory Sivertson?

  Which Barry celebrates weekly on something he calls.

• 21:41Speaker 04

  Today is International Sandwich Sunday, and today we're going to be doing an alutiki burger. Now, alutiki.

• 21:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Are there any other essential truths about sandwiches that you firmly and fervently believe?

• 21:52Speaker 04

  Uh, I believe a hot dog is a sandwich.

• 21:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  Thank you. Keep going. How do you, what about tacos?

• 21:59Speaker 04

  No.

• 22:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  How come?

• 22:02Speaker 04

  All right. So I'm going to give you two reasons why the hot dog is a sandwich in my book. One of them is deeply, deeply unsatisfying, and the second one is more based on logic. The first one, uh, reason why a hot dog is a sandwich is because everything is made up. Sandwiches is made up, hot dog, the fact that we call it a hot dog, that's all made up. So not very satisfying. The logic one is that if you look at a hot dog bun, the two sides are pretty close in thickness. The hinge is very thin. So to me, the hinge is an accommodation for the tubular meat. Um, and it's kind of like if you go to a sandwich shop and they cut the loaf of bread, but they don't cut all the way through. That's still a sandwich, correct?

• 22:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah. And sometimes that's what you want. Like if you got a sloppy meatball going in there, you might actually benefit from that bread not getting sliced all the way through.

• 22:48Speaker 04

  Right. Now, don't get me wrong. If someone says, hey, you want a sandwich and they hand me a hot dog, it's going to be weird, but. I do think it qualifies as a, as a sandwich. Whereas a taco, to me, the, the tortilla is pretty uniform in thickness, and it acts more like a sling than it does a sandwich.

• 23:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  Are there any non-bread sandwiches?

• 23:13Speaker 04

  Sure, from the up-to-date Sandwich Book of 1909, we had the dairy sandwich. The dairy sandwich was a slice of Swiss cheese, butter, and another slice of Swiss cheese.

• 23:24Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 23:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Done.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  Okay, let's give this dairy sandwich a go.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  You can really taste the Swiss cheese and the butter. Wow. That was a surprise to me that that would be a recipe in a book, but there it is.

• 23:41Amory Sivertson?

  You know what Barry did with this surprising recipe? He put it in another book, his own cookbook, which is hot off the panini press. It's a compilation of recipes from Barry's collection of old sandwich cookbooks.

• 23:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  Such as?

• 23:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Salad, sandwiches, and chafing dish dainties from 1909. Five o'clock tea from 1896. Remember five o'clock tea, Emery?

• 24:06Amory Sivertson?

  Nope.

• 24:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  Me neither. 101 sandwiches from 1901.

• 24:11Amory Sivertson?

  1,001 sandwiches from 1936. Barry's OG up-to-date sandwich cookbook from 1909, of course. And the very out-of-date beverages and sandwiches for your husband's friends from 1893.

• 24:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  Your husband's friends. Hmm, okay.

• 24:28Speaker 04

  What's great about that is the author of that is one who knows.

• 24:32Amory Sivertson?

  One who knows? I gotta talk to this one who knows.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  I know.

• 24:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  We approve of the name of Barry's book, though. Sandwiches of History: The Cookbook. All the best and most surprising things people have put between slices of bread.

• 24:52Amory Sivertson?

  In it, you'll find things like the nasturtium leaf sandwich from 1896.

• 24:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Hmm, the waffle cheese witch from 1974.

• 25:00Amory Sivertson?

  The chocolate sandwich number three from 1908.

• 25:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  The hot doggy sloppy joe from 1970. And many, many others that Barry thinks are interesting, fun to make, sloppy, and worth giving a go.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  And I also included one original sandwich recipe in there.

• 25:18Amory Sivertson?

  The dusty nutter goose, is that right?

• 25:20Speaker 04

  That's correct, yeah.

• 25:21Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 25:21Speaker 04

  It's basically frozen waffle, peanut butter, smoked duck breast, and cherry pop rocks. And then you top with another peanut butter waffle.

• 25:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow.

• 25:30Amory Sivertson?

  That's a big swing to come out with for your first original sandwich.

• 25:35Speaker 04

  For me, the big thing is to get folks into trying combinations that they don't necessarily think of or would not think would work. And also to think in terms of how can they add stuff to what they eat to make it more enjoyable, right? So it's more about flavor exploration, combination, textures. That kind of thing, to me, is more important than bringing back a specific sandwich, per se.

• 26:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  And Sandwiches of History does seem to be having that effect. You can see it in the comments on Barry's videos.

• 26:13Speaker 07

  Never thought of adding peanuts or chili crisp to a salmon sandwich. Banana, cheese, and pickle. This is either a pregnant or drunk sandwich, but I can't say. I'm not curious.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Corned beef Cuban wasn't on my bingo card for the day, but I'm here for it. I never knew a tomato sandwich could be so decadent.

• 26:32Speaker 06

  Damn, now I have to make a sardine maple syrup sandwich.

• 26:36Speaker 04

  And just the kind of community that's grown around Sandwiches of History makes it a lot of fun because everyone's passionately engaged about the flavors in the sandwich.

• 26:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Part of that engagement includes fans suggesting plus-ups of their own. Hear me out. Unsweetened dried tart cherries. Toast the bread in a dark sesame seed oil. Should have added nutmeg to the walnut side. Ah, shouldn't we all have added nutmeg to the walnut side?

• 27:05Amory Sivertson?

  It's not too late, Ben. Not too late.

• 27:11Amory Sivertson?

  Barry also says he gets DMs from folks telling him that he's opened their minds' palates and changed the way they approach cooking.

• 27:19Speaker 04

  Or I've gotten a note where a mother would thank me because their kid was really, really picky, and then he started seeing me plus-up sandwiches, and now he's not. He's wanting to try all different things. So it's deeply gratifying to hear those messages and have people expand what they think of when they think of flavors and textures when it comes to not just sandwiches, any food.

• 27:39Amory Sivertson?

  And so, in the name of broadening our own palates and possibilities, it was time for us to make a Sandwich of History.

• 27:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  This sandwich seems insane to me, but I'm excited.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, believe me.

• 27:52Amory Sivertson?

  This is my fault.

• 27:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Emery's fault because she wanted to make the triple decker sandwich on the cover of Barry's book, The Sophisticated Club, from 1958. A recipe even Barry was wary of initially.

• 28:08Speaker 04

  I looked at it. I thought, there's no way it's gonna work. It works. It works really well. And it's got an interesting combination of flavors and textures in it.

• 28:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Interesting indeed. We started with bread lightly toasted.

• 28:21Amory Sivertson?

  Four pieces buttered.

• 28:23Speaker 04

  One slice toasted. You wanna put your cheese?

• 28:24Amory Sivertson?

  American cheese for Ben, vegan cheddar for me, followed by plant meat for me, ham for Ben.

• 28:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is an interestingly shaped ham.

• 28:33Amory Sivertson?

  You're kind of an interestingly shaped ham.

• 28:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  Interesting is definitely a word. They won my years. Yeah.

• 28:40Amory Sivertson?

  Ben is a ham.

• 28:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  The spirit of the ham.

• 28:42Amory Sivertson?

  You're the spirit of the ham.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  Spirit of the ham. That'll be your first book.

• 28:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  After conjuring up the spirit of the ham, we summoned the spirit of a slice of canned pineapple?

• 28:57Amory Sivertson?

  I can act with that spirit, canned pineapple.

• 29:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah?

• 29:01Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, cuz, you know, I'm kind of fun and tangy, but I'm very practical.

• 29:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  I feel like you're fresher than that. You're more fresh and tangy than canned and tangy. You know what I mean?

• 29:14Amory Sivertson?

  I'll take it.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Then take another piece of your buttered bread and put a buttered side down on top of that.

• 29:19Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 29:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  Butter side down on top of the pineapple. Understood.

• 29:23Speaker 04

  And then we're gonna spread our peanut butter on top of that.

• 29:26Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, okay.

• 29:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  Then came the unsweetened coconut flakes.

• 29:29Amory Sivertson?

  I'm spreading it around with my finger. I hope that is very approved.

• 29:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  Then, the next slice of bread, butter side up.

• 29:36Speaker 04

  Now we add our bacon.

• 29:38Amory Sivertson?

  Or faken, a slice of tomato.

• 29:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  Or tomato.

• 29:42Speaker 04

  We're gonna season that with salt and pepper. The original recipe did not call for seasoning the tomato. This was one of the things I decided you just, you should need to do that.

• 29:51Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, I'm, I think my husband started salt and peppering all the tomatoes in our house because of you. So thank you. I have you to thank.

• 29:58Speaker 04

  You're welcome.

• 29:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  At this point, our sandwich just looked like a bunch of sandwiches on top of each other, but we pressed on with some sliced avocado. Even though I think avocado on a sandwich should be mashed.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  Now you just place your last piece of bread, buttered side down.

• 30:15Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 30:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay. Wait, what about your plus up?

• 30:18Speaker 04

  Well, what we like to do is taste the sandwich first and then plus it up.

• 30:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 30:21Speaker 04

  So now I cut it diagonally. I recommend that.

• 30:25Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, you can do that. I brought, I brought a big knife. If you want a big knife, Ben. I think this is a plus up pre-taste that I think you'll approve of, Barry. You tell me.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 30:36Amory Sivertson?

  I got plastic sword cocktail picks, like toothpicks. And I just wanted to make my sophisticated.

• 30:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Club.

• 30:45Amory Sivertson?

  Club even more sophisticated. Is that allowed?

• 30:50Speaker 04

  I say to thine own self, knock out.

• 30:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  And they're also rainbow, which we also.

• 30:54Amory Sivertson?

  They're rainbow colored. Ben, would you like a sword?

• 30:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 30:57Amory Sivertson?

  On guard.

• 30:58Speaker 04

  All right, let's give this sophisticated club sandwich a go.

• 31:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right, we'll spare you our chewing noises mostly, especially because this Sammy was a tall order. It's a mysterious sandwich.

• 31:20Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 31:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  Because you basically taste all of the ingredients.

• 31:26Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 31:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  And yet somehow they're not interfering with each other.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  Right?

• 31:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  Or not like combining somehow, like you can taste everything, but it doesn't taste bad.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  Right. And yeah, now you can see why I wanted to include this in the cookbook because this really on paper doesn't look like it should work.

• 31:44Amory Sivertson?

  No, but I love it.

• 31:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Well, that makes one of us, Hamery. So a little plus up couldn't hurt, right?

• 31:52Amory Sivertson?

  Yes. What's one more ingredient?

• 31:54Speaker 04

  So the plus up that I recommend in the book is chipotle powder, but really what we're looking for is some sort of smoky heat. It works with the avocado, it works with the bacon, tomato, works really well with peanut butter and with pineapple.

• 32:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  You know what, Aimo? I'm gonna plus up your spirit and say that you're the spirit of fresh pineapple plus Chipotle powder.

• 32:18Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, I like that. That works.

• 32:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  Cool.

• 32:20Amory Sivertson?

  And you know, I'm gonna say the internet got a plus up when Sandwiches of History got on the scene. Because it just feels like this, it's like a sneaky way of revisiting our past and celebrating our cultural and preferential differences while keeping an open mind and actually trying new things like a lot of us say we're going to do someday. You know, so

• 32:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 32:45Amory Sivertson?

  An online community that fosters a sandwich renaissance feels hopeful to me.

• 32:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Amory Sivertson?

  In a small, strange, but wonderful way. And in a time when it feels like humans can't agree on much of anything, damn it, it just feels good to get behind the sandwich, you know?

• 33:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, yeah. Get behind it, get on top of it, get around it, get over it and plus it up and yeah.

• 33:12Amory Sivertson?

  And give it a go.

• 33:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  And give it a go. Viva the sandwiches of the present, the future and

• 33:19Amory Sivertson?

  Of history.

• 33:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  History, history, history.

• 33:25Amory Sivertson?

  Barry, thank you so much.

• 33:26Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, Barry, it's been a real pleasure talking to you and I hope you never run out of sandwiches.

• 33:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen, but no, I had a lot of fun hanging out with you guys making a sandwich. Thank you so much for having me on.

• 33:42Amory Sivertson?

  Barry Underwick's Sandwiches of History Cookbook is available where books are sold and sandwiches are eaten.

• 33:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wait, one more sandwich question. Is a book a sandwich?

• 33:54Amory Sivertson?

  Is a book a sandwich?

• 33:56Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, my God.

• 33:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  My brain just exploded. Is a book a sandwich?

• 34:01Amory Sivertson?

  The pages are between two even

• 34:04Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 34:05Amory Sivertson?

  surfaces.

• 34:06Speaker 04

  The pages are sandwiched, but I would not call a book a sandwich.

• 34:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, I'm sorry for derailing us. Please continue.

• 34:13Amory Sivertson?

  The cover is just a sling, Ben, for the pages.

• 34:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's fair. That's fair.

• 34:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. And if you're in the Boston area, Barry Enderwick will be at WBUR's event space, City Space, on January 21st. And we might be there, too. More info at wbur.org/endlessthread.

• 34:48Amory Sivertson?

  We will definitely be there. We agreed to be there. We'll be introducing the show.

• 34:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, yeah, we will be there.

• 34:54Amory Sivertson?

  On your calendar, Ben. This episode was written and produced. It's written and produced by me, Amory Seabirdson, and co-hosted by me and...

• 35:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  The spirit of the ham, Ben Brock Johnson. Mixing sound design for this episode by not at all a slap of happy, sweet pineapple, but rather a dash of zippy pineapple and...

• 35:19Amory Sivertson?

  Chipotle powder.

• 35:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  Chipotle powder. Emily Jankowski.

• 35:22Amory Sivertson?

  Who also lent her voice as one of our sandwich commenters, along with our colleagues Daryl C. Murphy, Mike Moskato, and Rob Lane, Steph Brown, Marquis Neal, and Yasmeen Ammar from the Radio Boston team. Radio Boston for life. The rest of our team is managing producer Sumit Joshi, production manager Paul Vikes, Grace Tatter, and Dean Russell. The rest of Barry's team, for this interview at least, was his fiance, who we learned at the very end was just off camera the whole time.

• 35:55Ben Brock Johnson?

  Just hanging out. How's your fiance feel about sandwiches?

• 35:59Speaker 04

  Christine, how do you feel about sandwiches? They're OK. They're OK.

• 36:07Ben Brock Johnson?

  If you have an untold history, an unsolved mystery, a photo of your sandwich, or a wild old sandwich recipe that you want us to share with Barry, how about you give emailing [email protected]?

• 36:21Amory Sivertson?

  A go.

• 36:38Speaker 01

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