The Most Boring Sandwich in the World



The British toast sandwich is so punishingly dull that it seems like something straight out of a Monty Python sketch. The humble dish consists of a piece of buttered toast, seasoned with salt and pepper, between two slides of bread. That’s it. The toast sandwich made its print debut in Britain in 1861, in Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, a lengthy diatribe on home economics. In the book, the toast sandwich is actually listed as a food for sick people. The toast sandwich experienced something of a renaissance in 2011, when the Royal Society of Chemistry in Britain promoted it as the cheapest meal in existence. Many British people were still pinching pennies in the wake of the Great Recession. The average toast sandwich contains 330 calories, most from carbohydrates. There is a bit of fat from the butter, but the sandwich lacks the vitamins and fiber found in fruits and vegetables, as well as the protein found in other standard sandwich fillings like meat and peanut butter. It’s a food one eats to survive, not a food to be savored.