Salad Days

Sandwiches and salads, both seen as fancy foods, became so closely associated with each other in the Victorian period that it was inevitable that they would end up together. By the 1870s, in Manhattan, chicken, egg, and other salad sandwiches were appearing on hotel menus and, later, on the bills of fare at pubs and cafes.Today, the combination of creamy, savory filling and soft bread spans classes and cuisines—from the chicken salad sandwiches of New York's ladies who lunch to the egg and mushroom salad eaten in Russia on thick-sliced rustic bread. —Ben Mims

Danish Smoked Herring, Beet, and Potato Salad (Sildesalat)
MICHAEL KRAUS
Culture

Salad Days

By Ben Mims


Published on April 12, 2011

Sandwiches and salads, both seen as fancy foods, became so closely associated with each other in the Victorian period that it was inevitable that they would end up together. By the 1870s, in Manhattan, chicken, egg, and other salad sandwiches were appearing on hotel menus and, later, on the bills of fare at pubs and cafes.Today, the combination of creamy, savory filling and soft bread spans classes and cuisines—from the chicken salad sandwiches of New York's ladies who lunch to the egg and mushroom salad eaten in Russia on thick-sliced rustic bread. —Ben Mims

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