Barry Enderwick’s adventures in sandwiches began with a filling of chopped raw oysters. It was, he says, “so gross”. Still, his epic sandwich exploration continued with gusto. Since December 2018, Enderwick – a one-man historical re-enaction society, armed with mayonnaise and old cookery books – has recreated recipes for his social media accounts, Sandwiches of History. What began as occasional posts on Instagram, and then TikTok, has now turned into a daily lunchtime creation for hundreds of thousands of followers. Its success has come as something of a surprise.
“This shouldn’t have worked,” he says. “I’m a 55-year-old balding guy on social media; there’s no way I should have had anybody following me. I can speculate that amid all the people dancing, shaking, doing whatever, I’m the guy standing in his kitchen like, ‘Hey, let’s make a sandwich.’ There’s a calmness about it.” But mainly, he says, it’s that “sandwiches have universal appeal. You can put anything in there. You can cross cuisines, and it’s portable. You can make a sandwich really expensive if you want to, but by default, it is not an expensive food item.”
