Courts in two US states disagree on whether a burrito counts as a sandwich
In 2006 a Massachusetts judge ruled that a sandwich needs two slices of bread, so burritos were out. In 2024 an Indiana court called tacos and burritos Mexican-style sandwiches. The food named after an 18th-century gambling earl still has no settled definition.
Both cases were about business, not cuisine. In Massachusetts, a burrito restaurant wanted to open in a shopping centre where another tenant's lease barred rival sandwich shops; the court decided tortillas stuffed with meat, rice and beans were not what people normally mean by the word. Regulators hedge too. The US Department of Agriculture requires closed sandwiches to contain at least 35 percent cooked meat and no more than 50 percent bread, yet files burritos as sandwich-like, frankfurters as sandwich type, and excludes stromboli entirely. The British Sandwich Association settles for any bread with a filling, generally assembled cold, which lets in wraps and bagels.
The name honours John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. The familiar story has him ordering roast beef between toasted bread during long card sessions, so he could keep playing without a fork or greasy fingers; it was spread by Pierre-Jean Grosley's 1770 travel book on London. At first the snack was associated with men gambling and drinking late, before it crept into aristocratic suppers. The Wall Street Journal has called it Britain's biggest gift to gastronomy.
The idea is far older than the name. Hillel the Elder is said to have wrapped Passover lamb and bitter herbs in soft matzah in the first century BC. Medieval diners ate off thick slabs of stale bread called trenchers, which were afterwards given to dogs or beggars. In 17th-century Dutch taverns, the naturalist John Ray watched patrons lay thin slices of hanging beef on buttered bread, an open sandwich he felt he had to explain to English readers.
Industrial Britain made it indispensable, since workers needed cheap, fast, portable meals; by 1850 at least seventy London street sellers offered ham sandwiches. In America it began as an elaborate supper dish, becoming an everyday quick meal only once bread was a dietary staple in the early 20th century.
Source: Sandwich
