9 Mouthwatering Facts about Sandwiches

the street to a pot belly. How convenient, and that's where he still was eating his sandwich when the police arrested him. So you might think we're gonna do today's episode on nine things about ridiculous crimes or something like that, but no, we're hungry too, So today's episode is our nine favorite facts about sandwiches. Let's get started. Ye, you're

listening to part time genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend Manes Ticketer and the man on the other side of the soundproof glass making us all jealous with a couple of giant sandwiches, which he insists we call hoagies. For some reason is our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. That's impressive, Tristan. Now today is a little bit different because in our previous Nine Things episodes we've been joined by our lead researcher,

Gabe Bluesier. But Gabs on vacation this week, and actually so is Mango. But Mango is nice enough to hop on the phone with us from Portland. Hey there, Mango, how's the weather out in Portland? R? That sounds about right? All right? Well, as you know, in Gabe's place and and actually in studio here with me, is is one of our house stuff Works all stars and a host of food stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum. Welcome, Lauren, Hi, thank you. This is your second time on the show with us,

isn't it. Yeah? This I came back. You came back. We're glad you came. I'm glad to be back. Thanks, thanks so much for inviting you. Ready to talk about sandwiches. I'm so ready to talk about sandwiches. It seemed appropriate to have you on to do this, So so let's get started now now, Mango, because I've got a bet here with Lauren over which sandwich you're going to talk about first. I thought i'd let you kick it off,

so so why don't you get us started? Sure, and of course you know, I'm going to talk about the PD and J, my favorite sandwich. Ever, actually I'm wrong. I thought you were going to talk about the grilled cheese. Okay, well it's all you lays, go for it. So one thing I love about peanut butter is that it used

to be this delicacy served an upscale tea room. And I'm sure you know this, Lauren, but it was never really served with kelly, so like they had peanut butter and pimento sandwiches, or peanut butter and lettuce, or peanut butter and water cress. I did not know that, and I'm disturbed. Please go ahead. No. According to the National Peanut Pares, the first actual reference to PD and J was from Julia Davis Chandler and something called the Boston

Cooking School magazine. And this was way back in and she recommended using crab apple jelly, which are currently the kids didn't love. But the sandwich didn't actually catch on until World War Two, when it was used in military rational menu. But then it took off with digger and with a combination of sliced bread. It made making sandwich is easy, and you know, kids could assemble them themselves,

which made them ubiquitous. But I think the best thing I learned about TB and J is that grape jelly also used to be called grape blade, just like marmalade. Oh nice, I did not know that. So so the P B and J caught on here much like spam caught on everywhere else in the world because of the war. Is that right? Or perhaps a vegemitor marmite? Yes? Yeah, absolutely. All right, Well that's a good first fact, Lauren. You

want to tackle the next one? Uh? Yeah, okay, So I wanted to tackle the question of whether or not a burrito is a sandwich. It's a big question and something we should tackle. Yeah. I mean, this is extremely cut, cutting edge sandwich science that we're talking about here. It's actually a legal distinction in most places. There was this court case from two thousand six in which a Massachusetts judge declared that legally, burritos and tacos neither are sandwiches. Yeah. Um,

that's that's Panara versus Cadoba. Am I saying that right? I've never known. I always said Cutba, but I don't actually know. I probably should have looked it up. That's okay though, So okay. So, so Panara was trying to stop Codoba from renting in this one shopping center in Massachusetts because the Panara in question was operating under a sandwich exclusivity contract that means that no one else could make sandwiches too near to their sandwiches. But the judge

ruled against Panera. They were like, no, I just used this dictionary and this common sense that I have and it's not a sand and that's ridiculous. It's not a sandwich. Okay, Well I've I've actually got another big one that's perfect because I didn't know we were going to be we should do a separate episode on things that are not sandwiches, apparently, because is not a sandwich but a hot dog. And that's my first fact. Now I know that a hot dog is meat stuck in between bread. Makes it sound

so appetizing, doesn't it. But here, look, I've got an official press release from the National hot Dog and Sausage Council. Did you know this existed? Yes? And here's what This press release from a couple of years ago says, It says. Our verdict is a hot dog is an exclamation of joy of a food, a verb describing one showing off, and even an emoji. It is truly a category unto its own, and it is not It is not a sandwich, but not a exclamation of joy, not a sandwich, right right, absolutely,

all right, that's a little bit existential. But I but I'm into it. So there you go. Alright, mango, what's your next fact? So I actually am playing the type here and it's on drilled cheeses. I actually decided to look up the most expensive sandwich and this restaurant, Saren Deputy Tree came up, Like, I'm not sure if you're Dirty Rocks fans, but do you remember when Jack Doggy went up the super luxurious Sunday that had to be

ordered in advance for Valentine's dad. They were walking serendipities, a thousand dollar opulent Sunday. But if you're not looking to spend quite that much. The restaurant also makes this two hundred fifteen dollar quintessential grilled cheese, which is, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world's most expensive sentwich. It's actually it's actually built on a Chancaine bread midwip dom Perigna. It has twenty four carrot gold flakes.

It uses trumple butter and a rare cheese, and it comes with a South African lobster tomato bist just as a dipping suf. And also you have to order at forty eight hours and events. And that's because they want all the ingredients to be assembled fresh. And as any billionaire will tell you, you don't want any old gold on your grilled cheeses. I wonder if it's one of those you just can't go back once you try. You're like, I can settle for nothing less than a grilled cheese

from now on. I think that's right. That is an incredibly expensive sandwich, La, what you got? I hate one up, you know, but I have a more expensive sandwich. More expensive sandwich than a grilled cheese. Okay, there was this one time that NASA spent almost three million dollars on a sandwich. That's more than it's a couple. It's it's

you know, it's a little bit of spare change more. Yeah. Okay, so um so so Back in ten, this British TV personality type chef by the name of Heston Bluementhal developed a bacon sandwich, simple British bacon sandwich, but for space and uh and so in doing this, um he he he had to uh get away for it to go in a can for like food safety purposes so they

can irradiate it properly. And um specifically designed it to hold up in low gravity so that you know, the crumbs of the sandwich won't float all around and get into the equipment and ruin everything. Um. He designed this for for Major Tim peaka another British fellow who was going up to the I says it took him two years to create the sandwich. Two years and over two million pounds about three million bucks between the cost of

development and then actually transporting the thing. Wow, that is unbelievable. So almost three million dollars for this sandwich. Yeah. But but but Peak liked it. He reordered like next supplied, was like, yeah, it was worth it. Yeah. Is it cheaper in bulk? Like discounting there's another three million dollar sandwich. I guess the price drops the more that you send

up there. I mean, although you know it costs anywhere from from like seven grand to maybe like twelve grand to send a pound of stuff to the I S. S. So that's impressive. Well, this is weird because we started out your your first fact, I followed with a similar fact about what's not a sandwich? Well, I also have a NASA sandwich fact. Okay, And this one comes from the middle of the Gemini three mission in nineteen sixty five, astronaut John Young sandwich smuggler. Yes, he pulled out a

corned beef sandwich. Now not only that, but this came from a place called Wolfe's Restaurant in Sandwich Shop and Cocoa Beach. But this was attached to a ramata in. So if you're gonna smuggle a sandwich into space from the sandwich shop attached to the ramata inn, it seems like the obvious choice something exactly well, but as you

pointed out, they it didn't hold together. Well, these sandwiches in space, they start breaking up, and so the other astronaut next to him, Gus Grissom, starts worrying that it's going to start floating away the crumbs and get into all the ventilation system and things like that, and so he grabs this and puts it in his pocket. Now, this whole thing went down in a total of like ten seconds. And so you think, okay, that happened, no big deal, but it actually sent several of the congressmen

into a tizzy. They were really ticked off that they'd spent these millions of dollars and now we know it was almost three million dollars to develop these sandwiches going into space, and instead this guy was smuggling in his own corn beef sandwich into space. However, one of my other favorite things about this is you fast forwards sixteen years and the first time corn beef was officially added

to the flight menu. It's when Commander John Young Sam John Young was leading this mission into space and they added the sandwich to it. So, yeah, beef in space. Yeah yeah. You know, you can actually see this sandwich if you go to the Grissome Memorial Museum in Mitchell, Indiana. It's actually encased in acrylic, so you can go check this sandwich out. Pretty cool, huh? And is that exhibit sponsored by Ramana in Probably as it should be. All right, so we got one last fact each Mango your turn,

Now what you got? So this is about wonderbread and in the late nineties, Wonderbread did a couple of things to shake up their business. They started putting their bread in pelophane and invited users to throw away their bread boxers, which actually kind of worked. But one innovation that didn't take off was their idea for round bread, like a

bending their usual low. Wonderbread started making this circle shaped bread that perfectly fit your fried eggs or hamburgers or even your ballogney, and they marketed it as quote the best thing that ever happened to sandwiches, a buch of true statements that they had to quickly discontinue the bread. That's sad. I feel like wonder bread is best shaped

and like a really tightly compressed ball. For some reason, I always had that desire with like wonder bread, squitchy bread, and like squeeze it together and then just make this tiny little ball underneath. Yeah. Absolutely, it's more like I like it. All right. That's a good a good last fact there, Mango, All right, Lauren, you'r last fact what

you got? Alright. So so speaking of of a sliced bread and wonder bread stuff like that, the history of sandwich is does owe a lot to the invention of bread slicing machines, but for a brief period of time, sliced bread was banned in the United States. It was the wall was on um. We all have this accent. Very Suddenly, the head of the War Foods Administration, one clawed are Wickered, in a probable attempt to conserve resources, decided to ban sliced bread. This was for a few

possible reasons. The cost of wax paper to wrap it because cellophane hadn't really caught on yet. Also, the cost of flour and bread were on the rise, you know, since sales of bread had increased when when pre sliced bread became available. He figured that maybe you know, doing away with sliced bread would make you know, the demand drop and therefore even out the prices better for the consumer, all of that kind of stuff. Uh. And you know, since bread slicing machine takes up a lot of steel,

conserve the supply of steel very important. None of these were really good reasons, though, and there was such a public outcry that he lifted the ban in less than two months. Wow, didn't take long. People need sliced bread. People neither sliced sliced it. Yeah, there was a terrific article in the New York Times. The headline was sliced bread put back on sale, housewives thumbs safe again. That's

a good one, all right. Well, speaking of controversy, I wanted to end with with the fact as well, something else people cannot live without is their fluffer Nutter sandwiches. So this was a weird court battle from a little over a decade ago, Fluffer Nutter versus Massachusetts State Senator Jared Barrios. Okay, so we're talking about one where this senator realized that his kids were eating these fluffer nutters

sandwiches every single day at school. I can imagine being a little frustrated with that as apparently realized that, but maybe not taking it to the level that he did. He decided he was going to try to pass a

law against serving these things in schools. Well, this didn't sit well with certain other senators, and so there was a state representative rather Kathy Anne Reinstein, and she was so opposed to this legislation that she planned to quote fight to the death for the fluff and so she even supported legislation that would make the fluff nutter the official state sandwich. So I don't think that has happened

just yet. But but fortunately for the fans of the fluff or nutter, Senator Barrios attempt failed and that law did not go through. So these children are still able to eat their fluff or nutters. Oh that's good. That's good to hear. I hate to hear anyone denied fluff. U. Yes, absolutely, And I feel like we should probably make sure everyone understands what a fluff or nutter is. But you know what, I feel like maybe we shouldn't. We should just leave it there. I don't know, go for it. L well,

I I do. I have a bonus fact about the fluff nuts that it was originally called the liberty sandwich. The why is that because it was saving on lunch meat, you know, like like if you if you're if you're in wartime, if you're trying to save resources them more, it's less expensive and still you know, it's got some peanut butter in there. It's it's nutritionally stable ish peanut butter and marshmallow ruff and freedom. Absolutely. All right, Well,

I feel like some of my facts were pretty good. However, I think the play of the day was definitely when Lauren one up to Mango with the most expensive sandwich, So Mango. I know you're on vacation having a good time, but I really do feel like we have to give the PTG Trophy to Lauren on her first visit as as part of a fact off guest, what do you think? I think? Alright, congratulations Lauren. Thank you guys so much for listening today, and we'll be back with a regular episode tomorrow