Episodes we love: Sandwiches of History

In honor of the day-after-Thanksgiving leftover sandwich, we're revisiting our conversation with Barry Enderwick, the man behind the beloved and wildly popular "Sandwiches of History" social media accounts. Barry joined Ben and Amory to make a triple-decker sandwich from 1958, and to talk about 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." To quote Barry's signature phrase, we think you should give this episode "a GO!" If you're hungry for more, check out 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/.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questram School of Business. A recent episode explores how AI is reshaping our schools. Stick around until the end of this podcast to preview the episode.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  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.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  Hey Spotify listeners. When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.

• 1:00Amory Sivertson?

  Happy National Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwich Day.

• 1:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  You know, I gotta say, it's my favorite. I like it better than Thanksgiving dinner.

• 1:09Amory Sivertson?

  That does not surprise me in the slightest.

• 1:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  I mean, Thanksgiving dinner is kind of, yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's a lot. It's a lot. But the sandwich, the leftover sandwich, while you're watching some kind of rerun movie on TBS at your in-law's house, sign me up.

• 1:30Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. Just stack those beige foods on top of each other and put them between more beige foods. That's the way to do it. Plus some cranberry sauce for, you know, a little pop of color.

• 1:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  A little pop of color.

• 1:43Amory Sivertson?

  A little tartness.

• 1:44Ben Brock Johnson?

  Anyway, we hope you're having a warm, cozy holiday weekend with the people you love, plus the uncle that you put up with. And to get you extra psyched for that leftover sandwich, we thought we'd bring you an episode from earlier this year with a guy who knows, knows a lot about sandwiches. I went to his favorite sandwich shop in New Orleans. And you know what? As, as we're saying, he knows, he knows his sandwiches.

• 2:11Amory Sivertson?

  He knows what's up.

• 2:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  I trust him with my sandwich life.

• 2:16Amory Sivertson?

  All right. So here's that episode coming up. And please, please know how tremendously thankful we are for you for listening to the show. And, uh, bon appétit.

• 2:33Amory Sivertson?

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 2:41Speaker 05

  So we've got our toasted bread, right?

• 2:43Amory Sivertson?

  Yes, we've got our toasted bread.

• 2:45Speaker 05

  So we're gonna butter up all four slices.

• 2:47Amory Sivertson?

  I think we're buttered. Are you buttered?

• 2:49Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 2:54Amory Sivertson?

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

• 2:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  We're chopping. We're plating.

• 3:01Amory Sivertson?

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

• 3:08Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 3:20Speaker 05

  This is 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?

• 3:32Amory Sivertson?

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

• 3:37Speaker 05

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

• 3:41Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 3:53Speaker 05

  One slice of toast, you want to put your cheese. Now we're gonna put on, I believe, our ham. Next, we put on our slice of pineapple. Let's spread our peanut butter on top of that. Sprinkle the unsweetened coconut on that. Now we add our bacon, slice of tomato, put on our avocado.

• 4:06Amory Sivertson?

  Whoa, this is a tall boy.

• 4:10Amory 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.

• 4:27Speaker 05

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

• 4:35Amory Sivertson?

  Sandwiches of history.

• 4:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  History, history, history.

• 4:39Speaker 05

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

• 4:46Amory 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.

• 5:02Speaker 05

  Today, from conservation recipes of 1918. Today, from the chafing dish of 1912. Today, from a cook's own cookbook of 1832.

• 5:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Some of these sandwiches of yesteryear are pretty out there.

• 5:14Speaker 05

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

• 5:22Amory Sivertson?

  Others are surprisingly simple.

• 5:25Speaker 05

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

• 5:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  Barry makes and tries all of them.

• 5:38Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 5:42Speaker 05

  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.

• 5:54Amory Sivertson?

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

• 5:58Speaker 05

  I, I, I was just curious about these 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?

• 6:09Ben 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.

• 6:30Speaker 05

  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?

• 6:37Amory 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.

• 6:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm Ben Bonmi Broccoli Johnson.

• 6:55Amory Sivertson?

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

• 7:01Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 7:11Amory Sivertson?

  Or meat alternative.

• 7:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mmm.

• 7:14Amory Sivertson?

  Whichever which is your jam or jelly.

• 7:17Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 7:21Amory Sivertson?

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

• 7:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  A go.

• 7:39Amory Sivertson?

  Hello, Barry.

• 7:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  Barry. Hello. Barry Enderwick showed up to our video called "Just Like He Shows Up on Social Media."

• 7:46Amory 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.

• 7:59Ben 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?

• 8:14Amory Sivertson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:15Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 8:27Amory 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 video stills up, but then it was you, and I was.

• 8:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  No, it's me.

• 8:37Amory 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?

• 8:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  I feel like I literally just teared up.

• 9:02Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 9:06Amory Sivertson?

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

• 9:12Ben 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?

• 9:27Amory Sivertson?

  All good questions.

• 9:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's what I'm saying.

• 9:30Amory Sivertson?

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

• 9:33Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 9:36Amory Sivertson?

  Right here.

• 9:39Speaker 05

  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.

• 9:56Ben 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.

• 10:06Speaker 05

  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.

• 10:15Amory 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.

• 10:32Speaker 05

  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.

• 10:43Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 10:50Ben 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.

• 11:04Amory Sivertson?

  Up to which date? It was published in 1909.

• 11:09Speaker 05

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

• 11:14Ben 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.

• 11:19Speaker 05

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

• 11:25Amory Sivertson?

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

• 11:31Speaker 05

  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.

• 11:47Speaker 05

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

• 11:53Ben 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.

• 12:03Speaker 05

  Olive oil, lemon juice, Tabasco-like substance. We just sort of, uh...

• 12:11Speaker 05

  Boy, that looks unappetizing. And I love raw oysters, but boy, howdy.

• 12:14Amory Sivertson?

  The review? Boy, howdy.

• 12:17Speaker 05

  Textural nightmare. It was awful.

• 12:19Ben Brock Johnson?

  That sounds pretty gross. That sounds pretty gross.

• 12:23Speaker 05

  Highly unrecommend that.

• 12:27Ben 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.

• 12:39Amory 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.

• 12:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Boy, howdy.

• 12:46Amory Sivertson?

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

• 12:54Speaker 05

  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.

• 13:12Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 13:18Amory Sivertson?

  Is it his avuncular turns of phrase?

• 13:21Speaker 05

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

• 13:26Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 13:31Speaker 05

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

• 13:37Amory Sivertson?

  Little of column A, little of 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.

• 13:56Ben 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.

• 14:07Amory Sivertson?

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

• 14:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Let's ask the former Netflix marketing guy.

• 14:17Speaker 05

  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 roja mo, which I hope I'm pronouncing correctly. It's Chinese. It's from 200 B.C. And it's, 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, this crumpet-like bun, if you will, but it's cut.

• 14:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  People also call me basically a crumpet, Emery.

• 14:50Amory Sivertson?

  Ben Brock Crumpet Johnson. How could I forget?

• 14:58Ben 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.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  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?

• 15:16Amory Sivertson?

  Or is the whole sandwich just bread? Like the toast sandwich from Mrs. Beaton's Book of Household Management from 1965.

• 15:26Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 15:31Speaker 05

  It is, but it also has butter and salt and pepper. Um, and this is one of those, uh, 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

• 15:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow.

• 15:45Speaker 05

  upset systems or were sick. It was something that they could eat and hold down. Um, I thought it was, it sounded ridiculous until I tasted it and it actually was not bad.

• 15:56Amory 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.

• 16:06Speaker 05

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

• 16:15Ben 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.

• 16:25Speaker 05

  It was better. It wasn't spectacular.

• 16:27Amory Sivertson?

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

• 16:35Speaker 05

  And I mentioned there were no amounts given in this recipe. Yeah, good fact.

• 16:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  Which means sometimes you gotta wing it.

• 16:41Speaker 05

  There's also recipes where like, you know, take two tablespoons of grated cheese.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  Great. What kind? What kind of cheese should I use?

• 16:51Speaker 05

  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.

• 17:02Ben 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?

• 17:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  We got cheese and no cheese.

• 17:11Amory Sivertson?

  You had sliced bread?

• 17:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:15Speaker 05

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

• 17:18Amory 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.

• 17:29Speaker 05

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

• 17:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow.

• 17:47Speaker 05

  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.

• 17:59Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 18:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I want it to be a meal.

• 18:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 18:06Speaker 05

  You know, every once in a while I'll make a dill pickle and peanut butter sandwich because I grew up eating them.

• 18:10Amory Sivertson?

  Ooh.

• 18:11Speaker 05

  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 thing, so be it.

• 18:22Amory Sivertson?

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

• 18:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, you've never heard of that?

• 18:25Amory Sivertson?

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

• 18:28Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 18:32Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 18:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  My parents were into it.

• 18:33Amory Sivertson?

  To each their own.

• 18:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 18:35Speaker 05

  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.

• 18:47Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 18:52Speaker 05

  Peanut butter sandwich.

• 18:53Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 18:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  You also review chips.

• 18:59Speaker 05

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

• 19:02Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 19:07Amory Sivertson?

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

• 19:11Ben Brock Johnson?

  Burning.

• 19:12Speaker 05

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

• 19:24Ben 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?

• 19:50Speaker 05

  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.

• 20:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  Thank God for you. Thank God for you.

• 20:15Amory Sivertson?

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

• 20:19Ben Brock Johnson?

  I love you, man. I already love you.

• 20:27Amory Sivertson?

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

• 20:31Speaker 05

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

• 20:38Ben 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?

• 20:50Amory Sivertson?

  Hot dog in a minute.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. How should employers measure real skills in the age of AI?

• 21:16Speaker 06

  Instead of observing the final artifact, instead of observing the final essay or the final program, observe the entire process of creation.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts and stick around until the end of this podcast for a preview of a recent episode on rethinking academic and job assessment when AI can do the work.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Hey, Spotify listeners. When you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi, sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.

• 22:09Amory Sivertson?

  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?

• 22:21Speaker 05

  I don't have a lot of purity tests when it comes to sandwiches. Like, I'll do open-faced 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.

• 22:36Ben 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.

• 22:46Amory Sivertson?

  Which Barry celebrates weekly on something he calls...

• 22:50Speaker 05

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

• 22:56Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 23:01Speaker 05

  Uh, I believe a hot dog is a sandwich.

• 23:04Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 23:08Speaker 05

  No.

• 23:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  How come?

• 23:10Speaker 05

  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. The entire sandwich 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?

• 23:47Ben 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.

• 23:57Speaker 05

  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 sandwich. Whereas a taco, to me, the tortilla is pretty uniform in thickness, and it acts more like a sling than it does a sandwich.

• 24:19Ben Brock Johnson?

  Are there any non-bread sandwiches?

• 24:22Speaker 05

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

• 24:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mmm.

• 24:33Speaker 05

  That's it.

• 24:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  Done.

• 24:34Speaker 05

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

• 24:41Speaker 05

  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.

• 24:50Amory 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.

• 25:04Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 25:15Amory Sivertson?

  Nope.

• 25:16Ben Brock Johnson?

  Me neither. 101 sandwiches from 1901.

• 25:20Amory 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.

• 25:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  Your husband's friends. Hmm, okay.

• 25:38Speaker 05

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

• 25:41Amory Sivertson?

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

• 25:46Speaker 05

  I know.

• 25:49Ben 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.

• 26:01Amory Sivertson?

  In it, you'll find things like the Nestorsham Leaf Sandwich from 1896.

• 26:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Mmm, the Waffled Cheesewich from 1974.

• 26:09Amory Sivertson?

  The Chocolate Sandwich Number Three from 1908.

• 26:13Ben 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.

• 26:24Speaker 05

  And I also included one original sandwich recipe in there.

• 26:27Amory Sivertson?

  The Dusty Nutter Goose, is that right?

• 26:29Speaker 05

  That's correct, yeah.

• 26:30Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 26:31Speaker 05

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

• 26:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow.

• 26:39Amory Sivertson?

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

• 26:44Speaker 05

  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.

• 27:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  And Sandwiches of History does seem to be having that effect. You can see it in the comments on Barry's videos. Never thought of adding peanuts or chili crisp to a salmon sandwich.

• 27:26Speaker 07

  Banana, cheese, and pickle. This is either a pregnant or drunk sandwich, but I can't say. I'm not curious.

• 27:34Speaker 08

  Corned beef Cuban wasn't on my bingo card for the day, but I'm here for it.

• 27:38Speaker 09

  I never knew a tomato sandwich could be so decadent.

• 27:41Speaker 05

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

• 27:56Ben 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.

• 28:07Speaker 10

  Should have added nutmeg to the walnut side.

• 28:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  Ah, shouldn't we all have added nutmeg to the walnut side?

• 28:14Amory Sivertson?

  It's not too late, Ben. Not too late. Barry also says he gets DMs from folks telling him that he's opened their minds palates and changed the way they approach cooking.

• 28:28Speaker 05

  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.

• 28:48Amory Sivertson?

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

• 28:57Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 29:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, believe me.

• 29:01Amory Sivertson?

  This is my fault.

• 29:03Ben 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.

• 29:17Speaker 05

  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.

• 29:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  Interesting indeed. We started with bread lightly toasted.

• 29:30Amory Sivertson?

  Four pieces buttered.

• 29:32Speaker 05

  Uh, one slice toasted. You wanna put your cheese?

• 29:34Amory Sivertson?

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

• 29:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is an interestingly shaped ham.

• 29:42Amory Sivertson?

  You're kind of an interestingly shaped ham.

• 29:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Interesting is definitely a word. The one my news, yeah.

• 29:49Amory Sivertson?

  Ben is a ham.

• 29:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  The spirit of the ham.

• 29:51Amory Sivertson?

  You're the spirit of the ham.

• 29:52Speaker 05

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

• 29:58Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 30:06Amory Sivertson?

  I connect with that spirit, canned pineapple.

• 30:09Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah?

• 30:10Amory Sivertson?

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

• 30:16Ben 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?

• 30:24Amory Sivertson?

  I'll take it.

• 30:24Speaker 05

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

• 30:28Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 30:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  Butter side down on top of the pineapple. Understood.

• 30:32Speaker 05

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

• 30:35Amory Sivertson?

  Ooh, okay.

• 30:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  Then came the unsweetened coconut flakes.

• 30:38Amory Sivertson?

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

• 30:42Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 30:46Speaker 05

  Now we add our bacon.

• 30:47Amory Sivertson?

  Or faken, a slice of tomato.

• 30:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Or tomato.

• 30:51Speaker 05

  We're gonna season that with salt and pepper.

• 30:54Speaker 05

  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.

• 31:01Amory 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.

• 31:07Speaker 05

  You're welcome.

• 31:08Ben 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.

• 31:17Speaker 06

  Even though I think avocado on a sandwich should be mashed.

• 31:20Speaker 05

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

• 31:24Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 31:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay. Wait, what about your plus up?

• 31:27Speaker 05

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

• 31:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 31:31Speaker 05

  So now I cut it, I cut it diagonally. I recommend that.

• 31:34Amory 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.

• 31:44Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 31:45Amory Sivertson?

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

• 31:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  Club.

• 31:54Amory Sivertson?

  Club even more sophisticated. Is that allowed?

• 31:59Speaker 05

  I say to thine own self, knockout.

• 32:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  And they're also rainbow, which we also.

• 32:03Amory Sivertson?

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

• 32:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Amory Sivertson?

  On guard.

• 32:07Speaker 05

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

• 32:19Ben 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.

• 32:29Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 32:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  Because you basically taste all of the ingredients.

• 32:35Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 32:36Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 32:39Speaker 05

  Right?

• 32:40Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 32:45Speaker 05

  Right. And, 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.

• 32:53Amory Sivertson?

  No, but I love it.

• 32:54Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 33:01Amory Sivertson?

  Yes. What's one more ingredient?

• 33:04Speaker 05

  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, and with pineapple.

• 33:18Ben 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.

• 33:27Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, I like that. That works.

• 33:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  Cool.

• 33:29Amory 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

• 33:53Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 33:54Amory Sivertson?

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

• 33:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 34:00Amory 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?

• 34:14Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 34:21Amory Sivertson?

  And give it a go.

• 34:23Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 34:28Amory Sivertson?

  Of history.

• 34:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  History, history, history.

• 34:34Amory Sivertson?

  Barry, thank you so much.

• 34:36Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 34:42Speaker 05

  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.

• 34:51Amory Sivertson?

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

• 34:57Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 35:03Amory Sivertson?

  Is a book a sandwich?

• 35:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, my God. My brain just exploded. Is a book a sandwich?

• 35:10Amory Sivertson?

  The pages are between two even

• 35:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 35:14Amory Sivertson?

  surfaces.

• 35:15Speaker 05

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

• 35:19Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 35:22Amory Sivertson?

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

• 35:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  That's fair. That's fair.

• 35:40Ben 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.

• 35:57Amory Sivertson?

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

• 36:01Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, yeah, we will be there.

• 36:03Amory Sivertson?

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

• 36:14Ben 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...

• 36:28Amory Sivertson?

  Chipotle powder.

• 36:29Ben Brock Johnson?

  Chipotle powder. Emily Jankowski.

• 36:31Amory 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 Sumitajoshi, 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.

• 37:05Ben Brock Johnson?

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

• 37:08Speaker 05

  Christine, how do you feel about sandwiches?

• 37:11Speaker 07

  They're OK.

• 37:12Speaker 05

  They're OK.

• 37:16Ben 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]?

• 37:30Amory Sivertson?

  A go.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken?, a podcast from the Marotra Institute at BU Questrom School of Business. Follow Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts and listen on for a preview of a recent episode featuring Janet Kang, Executive Director of the Just Horizons Alliance, on who stands to benefit from AI in education.

• 38:10Speaker 11

  I am absolutely in favor of AI in learning in the right context.

• 38:15Speaker 12

  And just to explain why you're excited about it.

• 38:17Speaker 11

  Oh my gosh, individualized support, right? Personalization and to be able to scale quality education in places where it was historically impossible. So for certain kinds of learners with different kinds of learning styles and disabilities, for example, speakers of different languages, there are amazing ways AI can boost learning. It just has to be with the right context and age appropriateness is something we do a lot of work in because it is very different depending on where in that maturity cycle you are in terms of how your brain develops.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Find the full episode by searching for Is Business Broken? wherever you get your podcasts and learn more about the Marotra Institute for Business Markets and Society at ibms.bu.edu.

• 39:06Speaker 13

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• 39:37Speaker 12

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