Why is a sandwich called a sandwich?
Although the sandwich has nothing to do with sand, it still has a vague connection with island life, because the Hawai’ian Islands were once called “The Sandwich Islands.” They were named for the very same person for whom the sandwich that we eat was named, John Montagu (1718-1792), the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. The Earl was the patron of Captain James Cook (the explorer who discovered the Hawai’ian Islands) and, because he was also the First Lord of the Admiralty during the American revolutionary war, he has sometimes been blamed by the British for the loss of the American Colonies. There is a story that he was an enthusiastic gambler and when he didn’t wish to leave the gaming table — or possibly just his desk — to go to dinner he would ask for someone to bring him some meat between a couple of slices of bread. Later, when others began asking for the same thing, they would say something like, “I’ll have what Sandwich is having…” Obviously it caught on, and people just started call
