Ham and cheese

Ham and cheese sandwich

A grilled ham and cheese sandwich, in a cast iron frying pan
Type	Sandwich
Main ingredients	Sliced bread, cheese, ham

A ham and cheese sandwich is a common type of sandwich. It is made by putting cheese and sliced ham between two slices of bread. The bread is sometimes buttered and/or toasted. Vegetables like lettuce, tomato, onion or pickle slices can also be included. Various kinds of mustard and mayonnaise are also common.

Sliced bread, sliced cheese, and sliced cooked ham are very readily available in Western supermarkets and as a result ham and cheese sandwiches are quick and easy to prepare. They are a common component of a packed lunch.

As recalled by ballpark concessionaire Harry Stevens in a 1924 interview, in 1894 ham and cheese sandwiches were the only food sold in New York baseball parks; frankfurters were introduced fifteen years later.

An Englishwoman, writing in 1923 of her passage through Ellis Island on a trip to the U.S., noted:

Richard E. Byrd took ham and cheese sandwiches on his 1926 polar flight as did 1927 transatlantic fliers Chamberlin and Levine.

The origin of the ham and cheese sandwich has been debated for a number of years by culinary intellectuals. The leading theory as to who first started to produce a ham, cheese and bread dish is mentioned in The Larousse Gastronomique 1961. Here it notes that Patrick Connolly, an 18th-century Irish immigrant to England, sold a bread dish which:

"combined the remains of pig, cured and sliced with a topping of Leicester cheese and a kiss of egg yolk sauce (a form of mayonnaise) in a round bread roll. The dish was rather unimaginatively known as a Connolly and is still sometimes referred to as this in some parts of the Midlands in the UK."

In the UK, a common addition to a ham and cheese sandwich is pickle (a sweet, vinegary chutney originally by Branston); the snack is then known as a ham, cheese and pickle sandwich.