18 November 2023 , 07:00
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Sandwiches come in all shapes, sizes, fillings, hot or cold, but one ingredient has confused some foodies - butter. In a thread on Quora, one American questioned if British people really do spread butter on the bread when making a sandwich after seeing numerous chefs do so on cooking programs.
The post read: “I'm American. I often notice on British cooking shows that they often spread butter on the inside of sandwiches. You never see this in America. Is that realistic? Will the average Briton put butter in the inside of say, a ham sandwich?” The post was flooded with feedback from British readers to reveal all. Turns out, most Brits do butter their sandwiches. However, the type of butter is up to the individual’s preference.
One Quora user replied: “You have sandwiches without butter? I’ve never had a sandwich without butter in my life. Oh sorry, there was the time in the 1950’s when margarine was used, and of course beef dripping was just spread on bread, and possibly the odd bacon sarnie without. But seriously I had no idea that any one eat sandwiches with no butter or spread on it. Funny old world isn’t it?”
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Another added: “We most definitely do butter our sandwiches. It's unimaginable that anyone would make a sandwich with dry bread. I'm very fussy about the kind of butter too. A piece of ham on dry bread isn't a sandwich, it's an abomination. That's what you eat when you're lost in the woods, struggling to survive.”
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Other Quora users have a theory as to why some use butter in a sandwich. One explained: “Butter in a sandwich has two functions. It tastes great, and it helps the whole thing to stick together. It's pretty well always part of a sandwich in the U.K.”
While another weighed in: “The butter is there to protect the bread from any dampness of the contents. Now fine you might get away with ham or cheese but as soon as you add salad you’ll get a soggy mess. And plain bread and ham needs a bit of lubricant somewhere to get it down you. For some godawful reason a lot of sandwich shops use mayonnaise instead of butter - heathens.” While American and Canadian readers insisted they too spread butter on their sandwiches, so maybe there isn’t a divide after all?
Another added: “I am American, and so were my parents, and I have always put butter on sandwiches. It keeps anything else from soaking into the bread and making it soggy -especially if you have a meat product or something like a tomato or cucumber in your sandwich. I cannot imagine making a ham sandwich without buttering the bread first. The standard ham baguette always has butter in it, and so would its Italian counterpart.” A separate comment read: “Canadian here. Y’all don’t butter your bread south of the border? What the hell?”