Does anyone care what the 11th Earl of Sandwich has to say about sandwiches? (Does anyone care what Paul Ryan has to say about economics?)

No, this isn't The Sandwich. It's just, you know,
"a" sandwich -- from Subway, actually.

The Eleventh Earl of Sandwich and his forty-year-old heir, Orlando William Montagu, entered the catering trade in 2001, establishing a chain of sandwich restaurants called Earl of Sandwich. Their partner is the guy who founded Planet Hollywood. They have outlets at the Downtown Disney Marketplace and in the Fort Drum Service Plaza, in Okeechobee, Florida. Later this year, they will open branches in New York, one in midtown and another on John Street. . . . [A]ccording to their literature, "we don't serve mere sandwiches. We serve The Sandwich."

-- the start of Lauren Collins's "Talk of the Town" report,
"On a Roll," in last week's (May 23) New Yorker

by Ken

Now of course it's always good to know that we New Yorkers are on the verge of catching up with what's chic in Okeechobee, and of course England, where the 11th Earl and his son the future 12th Earl (addressed as "Lando" by his father, as in "Paper napkins, Lando, please!") . . . well, as Lauren puts it in her report (which is not available free online, by the way):

The Montagus, like the "Bachelor" contestant Prince Lorenzo Borghese, are not shy about making new money from an old name. For around six dollars, a customer can obtain the Earl's Club, the Full Montagu, or the Original 1762: roast beef, Cheddar, and horseradish sauce.

"The other day, in London," Lauren explains, "a concerned American sandwich lover performed some reconnaissance." Now one doesn't like to think that The New Yorker actually paid her way to London to sample these gustatory delights. Was she maybe there on her own, and took advantage of this opportunity to clue New Yorkers and no doubt other Americans (where do you go on a trajectory that runs from Okeechobee through NYC?) that Something's Coming? Well, I suppose that's none of my business, except possibly when I have to write my next subscription-renewal check.

It was, as I'm sure we all recall, the 11th Earl's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (I think I've got the right number of "great"s, but don't bet The Sandwich on it), the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who invented the sandwich. Lauren quotes the famous account by "the French traveler Jean-Pierre Grosley," from 1765, that attributed the invention to the earl's compulsive gambling, which rendered him unwilling to surrender more than one hand to even so important a function as nourishment, which he took in the form of "a bit of beef, between two slices of toasted bread, which he eat without quitting the game. This new dish grew highly in vogue, during my residence in London."

An alternative theory supported by 11th Earl biographer N.A.M. Rodger holds that "his subject's dedication to the Navy, politics, and the arts -- he was a big fan of madrigals --that led him to demand a meal that could be eaten at his desk."

No doubt you're waiting breathlessly to hear oracular pronouncements about sandwiches from, you know, the sort-of-source. Okey-dokey, can do.

Both father and son employ cooks, but they have strong opinions about sandwich construction, even if the construction of their sandwiches is often subcontracted. Eating lunch with them was like perusing knitwear with the descendants of the Earl of Cardigan, or sitting around with the Wellington family -- of which Orlando's wife is a member -- talking rubber boots.

And then comes the revelation that prompted me to bring the whole thing up. I think this really needs to be in boldface.

"I don't like everything poured onto a sandwich," the Earl said. "I like one or two things, but most people like a huge choice nowadays, so we have to accept that," he said, with the regretful air of a viceroy lamenting the fall of the Raj.

And along about here, tongue-in-cheek though the report clearly is, I found myself wondering, though wondering really isn't quite strong enough a term: Why the hell would anyone in his or her right mind give a damn what the 11th Earl of Sandwich thinks about sandwiches?

I mean, if you were doing a TV show about sandwiches, and you were filming random people's opinions about sandwiches, you might for laughs get around to the 11th Earl, in the way that you might for some reason get around to asking, say, Rep. Paul Ryan -- in much the same way that our Paul's views on economics, a subject about which he has even more dubious credentials (after all, it seems likely that he actually eats sandwiches), are for inexplicable reasons occasionally sought out by reporters with apparently nothing better to do with their time or media holes.

And just to be clear, questions about Lando's having endured "playground gibes about his ancestry" are out of bounds.

"He's not a Sandwich yet, so why would he?" the Earl interjected. "The title will not pass to him until I die. Not many foreigners can work it out."

Um, noted, Earl. Er, thanks. I mean, sorry. Whatever.

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