A brief History of the Tomato Sandwich

The history of the tomato sandwich has been a sine wave of violence and repose, cut, slice and chew. The tomato. A spoil of conquest and greed ending up between two slices of bread in an act of breathtaking expediency and innovation.

The 4th Earl of Sandwich was an addicted card-player who would not rise from the table to eat but had his servants present him with meat between two slices of bread for a repast. An idea he read in the classics. The Romans introduced eating meat in this way to Britain when Julius Caesar invaded . Caesar was attributed with the saying, "Veni, vidi, sandwichi.", meaning, "I came, I saw, I made a sandwich."

Lycopersicon lycopersicum was cultivated by the Aztecs and known as Tamatl. Aztecs who were known to be not adverse to the odd bowl of tlacca-tlaolli or man and maize soup enjoyed thin shavings of tamatl between two slices of crisp maize bread and served as an horsdouevre before a scrumptious bowl of boiled guy. Tlacca-tlaolli is said to have tasted like the Chinese Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup.

Tamatl became tomate in Spain. Rapidly entering the cuisine and everyday life where even the colour was adopted for the bullring in the cape used to goad the bull, then known as the tomatodor. Later shortened to matador.

And, though undoubtedly some rustic in Spain or some bucolic boob in Bologna hit on the idea of laying slices of tomato on white bread, the moment of true confirmable genesis, the birth of the Tomato Sandwich did not come until more than four hundred years had passed since Hernan Cortes picked those first fateful seeds from his beard after biting into a ripe tomato.

Up till that fateful morning in 1930 in the least likely place in the world for the tomato sandwich to be born, the use of tomatoes had been inhibited by the tomatoes tendency to burst juice and seeds when bitten into. Up till then the tomato had been been enjoyed as something illicit. Introduced to Europe in the form of a yellow fruit it was first known as the golden apple or the pomme d’or. But this became corrupted into pomme d’amour, or the love apple. The English disdained the love apples because it led led to an excessive interest in things carnal. Tomatoes were considered an aphrodisiac for three hundred or more years and many an amorous moment was marked by the tomato juice squint of a seed in the eye after an overexcited bite into some ripe fruit held by one’s paramour. Casanova discusses some recipe’s for the removal of tomato stains from bed sheets. And one of Shakespeare's lost sonnets is said to have sung the rhapsody to pepper on tomato to freshen one’s breath before serious nuptial workouts.



" tis the tang of tomato on her tongue which doth frenzy me, hung like a banner as it is beneath the portcullis of pepper, suspended there ‘neath its great fleshy wall, writhing under the prodding finger of the breeze, bidding me, " te’amato", "I love thee."

Three hundred and ten years after the bard sang of his love for his wife's love of tomatoes we come to that defining moment in the history of the tomato sandwich one morning in the great South Land, Australia, the morning of Katoomba Public schools annual fete. The year is 1930, the month is February, late February and Mrs Beatrice Cowsdimple had forgotten to bake a cake. The great depression was whirling like a destructive willi-willi through the country throwing many people out of work.

Food was expensive so everyone had a vege patch with some fruit trees carefully tended for the jam’s they’d yield. But stretched out on stakes throughout the backyards of the town, and for that matter the country were the rich red monster delicioso tomato vines which could be grown even in pots if you didn’t have the land for spuds and trees.

She had baked a hi-top which was cooling on the bench beside her, a bowl of fat red tomatoes sat in the window, outside the heat was making the air shimmer, and the three sisters wished they had parasols.

She was in a turmoil, as she describes years later, "I was in a turmoil. The other mums would think I was a loser because I hadn’t baked a cake. But with the depression and everything going on at the time, you think you could be forgiven, but those P&C fascists couldn’t keep that "I’m a more concerned mother than you" look off their faces as they rolled up with their Sacher Tortes and Black Forest cake, and for heaven’s sakes, Lamingtons! Lamingtons. I had to come up with something. I couldn’t stand that withering sympathy. The eyes. The eyes."

The experience for many mothers of being on tuck shop committees, or P&C committees has left a legacy of post traumatic stress syndrome victims through the generations. Beatrice was one such veteran of the tuck shop trenches. She had to come up with something so her children would not hang their heads in shame. Nothing less than the honour of her blood line was at stake. Somewhere in that bloodline there had been a da Vinci, a Keppler, an Archimedes and they came to her rescue. Genius again changed the world. None can explain how that spark of genius works which associates a log rolling down a hill with the problem of taking home a dead mammoth, and comes up with the wheel but it worked for Beatrice Cowsdimple. The tomatoes, the bread, the problem.

She picked up the knife, she held it, she thought feverishly of the faces filled with reproach, "No cake, poor dear, no cake oh dear, what will we do with you?"

She held the knife as she glanced about in fever, searching needing an inspiration something to break the whirl of despair, and then she seized on it. Down came the knife! Blade sharpened to a razor, catching the sunlight as it fell on the hapless tomato. Off came one slice, then another, and another. She was creating, she was inspired. And like da Vinci in a fever, or Archimedes naked to the world in his exultation she drove on amok with the juices of her own creativity. The bread was seized without ceremony and rudely thrown down on the cutting board where with swift motions two slices were severed from the loaf.

And here is where history is made, where true genius reveals itself in details, she took the butter, she held it and she buttered the bread. Not for her the rude assembly of raw tomato and naked bread to make a wet mess, unpalatable in its texture, impractical. Which with the hindsight of history we see was the sandwich barrier for the tomato. Not until butter was added did we have the true tomato sandwich. Safe in the bottom of bags, the juices sealed between two impervious layers of butter fat, enveloped in two layers of white milk bread circumscribed by two perimeter of bread crust. Not overwhelming but protecting the integrity of the whole. Not since Cellini has something so practical been as beautiful as Beatrice Cowsdimple’s first tomato sandwich and which to this day remains the prototype of the supreme finger food. The tomato sandwich cut into four triangles has graced tables and function of the rich and the poor alike ever since. Its debut was an unmitigated success. Beatrice Cowsdimple was lionised but alas the fire which had burned within her to give us the tomato sandwich had in its fury turned her mind to ash. She was to never create another sandwich again. But generations salute her and what she gave the world. The first honest to goodness Tomato sandwich. We were to wait another fifteen years before someone added pepper but that’s another story from the passing parade of Food in History.