The Current - A U.K. politician mocked the sandwich. Cue a national debate

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

British politician Kemi Badenoch got some salty responses when she decried the humble sandwich as "not a real food.” London chef and sandwich shop owner Max Halley shares why people flocked to the food’s defence, and what he’d serve Badenoch to change her mind.

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On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. You have probably heard an awful lot by now about the political uproar in Ottawa. But have you heard about this recent brouhaha in Britain? Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch did an interview with The Spectator magazine and started a bit of a bun fight.

Here are people on the streets of London reading her comments aloud for a reporter. Lunch is for wimps. I have food brought in and I work and eat at the same time. Sometimes I'll get a steak. I'm not a sandwich person. I don't think sandwiches are real food. It's what you have for breakfast. And now take a listen to their reactions to her attack on the sandwich. It's a weird hill to die on, to be honest. Look, if we could all have steak brought in, I think everyone would. Isn't that what

the women on Devil Wears Prada did? They were invented here. What else is not food? You've just had your lunch yourself. I had a sandwich. How was it? It was tasty. Tasty. Cue the reaction from her political opponents on the Labour benches. Keir Starmer's defended sandwiches as a great British institution after Kemi Badenoch told Spectator magazine she doesn't think they're a real food.

Ed Miliband, who was famously photographed eating a bacon sandwich, said she needs to discover the delights of a bacon sanny. With me now, somebody who understands the delights of all kinds of sandwiches. His name is Max Halley. He is a chef, cookbook author and owner of Max's Sandwich Shop in London. Max, hello. Hello, Matt. Hello. What do you make of this attack on the sandwich by the new leader of the Conservative Party?

I just, you know, what has the sandwich ever done to them? To be honest, I'm quite baffled by it. But I am also thoroughly entertained by it. How nice that finally our politicians are debating something of real importance. She also said that she wouldn't eat bread if it was moist, which maybe that's a hill to die on. It's such a weird thing to say, isn't it? So what does that mean? That like, so a piece of bread is okay,

but a piece of bread with mayonnaise or butter or something on it is not okay? It's just, the whole thing is genuinely odd. Keir Starmer, of course, the prime minister, he has to respond because this is his opposition, but also he felt like he needed to defend, you know, the good name of the sandwich. Has he done enough to do that?

I don't know. What did he say? He said that he liked, or his spokesperson said that he liked a tuna sandwich and occasionally a cheese toastie, which, you know, is no bad thing, I guess. But it sounds like even Keir could make a little more effort with the stuff he puts between two bits of bread. I mean, people here in this country eat a lot of sandwiches, I'm sure, but this is nothing quite like what happens in Britain. You eat something like 8 billion pounds worth of sandwiches each year. That's like 14, 15 million Canadian dollars of sandwiches a year. Why are people there so crazy about a sandwich? I think British people feel, rightly or wrongly, that the sandwich is a kind of core part of British cuisine or British food. It's like literally the go-to lunch of the country, which is what makes, you know, Kemi Badenoch's statement so odd.

Why would she kind of stick herself up in a tower? It's odd. Also because this has been the subject, as we said earlier, of political missteps in past. Ed Meliband was caught eating bacon sandwiches, really awkward photo. David Cameron was eating a hot dog with a knife and fork. Yeah. I mean, it does this actually just tell us that the people we elect to office are just mad when it comes to their lunch. And yet, I mean, there are many sandwiches that are mass produced. Does she have a bit of a point? I mean, that's at sandwiches, you can talk and talk about it, but it's a bit overrated,

isn't it? Well, I mean, how dare you, Matt? I want you to take that back immediately. I, this is also a hill that I will die on. What is the, what is the worst? I mean, and I asked this based on those, those kind of mass produced sandwiches. What is the worst that you've seen that is consumed on a regular basis?

Oh gosh. I don't know. I'm sure there are all kinds of abominations when it comes to sandwiches. For me, look, just on a completely personal basis, I think a cold slab of cheese is a horrible thing to have in a sandwich. Cheese, for me, should be melted when it's in a sandwich. So I guess I would I would dislike a piece of cheese between two bits of bread fills me with dread. piece of cheese between two bits of bread fills me with dread. But otherwise, I believe that all my children are beautiful and the sandwich can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. I mean, you have a direct connection to this because you worked in some pretty fancy restaurants

and then ended up opening up a sandwich shop. Why did you do that? I did. So I, yeah, I worked in sort of jazzy Michelin star restaurants and all that kind of business. And when I left there to open a restaurant of my own, I knew a guy who had changed the burger in Britain from a kind of sort of thing that you would get at maybe a football ground or a fish and chip shop a kind of junk food thing and turned it into something a bit more gastronomic and when i when it came to me opening my own restaurant which was now over 10 years ago um i looked around and i thought what is there that has mass appeal, but has been neglected and become a bit rubbish. And I realized that the sandwich was there for the taking, so I took it. What are the elements based on that and the taking to elevate the sandwich? What are the elements that make a great sandwich in your mind?

Well, I mean, for me, in terms of the sandwiches that I serve at my sandwich shop, I have a sandwich mantra, which is hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, soft. Okay, explain the mantra to us. Yeah, so it is, I believe, in those three core contrasts that our brains find deliciousness. And what I am most concerned with is deliciousness. And the sandwich, certainly when I started 10 years ago, or the sandwich in England, was something that had become completely about convenience and not about deliciousness. You go to Pratt's and get the cheese and onion rather than something. It's just something to fill you up.

Exactly, yeah. It's something that you can slam down at your desk without thinking about too much. And you can eat it with one hand. And so I made sandwiches that are so large and full of goodies that you'd struggle to eat them with one hand. This is a two-hand job. to eat them with one hand you need this is a two-hand job um and uh yeah so hot cold hot cold sweet sour crunchy soft that i think what is lacking in nearly all sandwiches is crunch um and we we live in a world where people think lettuce is crunchy which is an abomination lettuce is not crunchy lettuce is fresh and its purpose in sandwiches as far as

i'm concerned is to provide freshness now crunch comes from deep fried things uh crisps are crunchy or chips um as as maybe you call them are um are where crunch real crunch is to be found and so every sandwich i have ever served at my sandwich shop has had a deep fried element to it. Yeah. Put it all together. I mean, if you roll together hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, and soft, what would an example of that, if I walked into the shop, be? Literally every sandwich we've ever served has adhered to those rules. So, for example, the kind of signature sandwich of my sandwich shop is the ham and chips sandwich. So ham and chips, as in fries, is the kind of classic British pub lunch. And when I opened my sandwich shop, I wanted to try and turn the sandwich into something that could be seen as a meal.

And so I started with something that was already clearly a famous plate of food. So hammock and chips. So in my sandwich version of that, there is hot braised ham hock meat. There is piccalilli. I don't know. do you know piccalilli so piccalilli is a kind of halfway between a sort of chutney and a condiment it's a kind of piccalilli vegetable chutney with kind of curry spices in it lots of turmeric and coriander and cumin and mustard vinegar uh lots of onion and carrot and yeah kind of crunchy

acidic chutney i guess is what it is so you have the the hot braised ham hock meat you have this this piccalilli sweet and sour you have a fried egg you have uh shoestring fries or what the french call allumette um there's crisps that have crisps that have the same dimension as matchsticks. And then you have malt vinegar mayonnaise. And so there are all of those. There is hot, cold, sweet, sour, crunchy, and soft. All six of those elements are present in that sandwich. That sounds incredible.

You know, I don't want to beat around the bush or blow my own trumpet too much, but these are some of the best sandwiches in the world. Like my sandwich shop has been recognized as one of the best sarnie shops in the world. And people travel to come and eat our sarnies. And so, yeah, I'm super proud of them, of the sandwiches and the sandwich shop. I have to ask you, before I let you go, people define sandwiches in different ways. So how do you define, is it just anything between two pieces of bread? I don't know. Look, there is,

there are many arguments. Is a hot dog a sandwich? Is a hot dog a sandwich? Look, for me, yes. Arguably, I understand that a hot dog arguably has toppings, not fillings, which might prevent it from being a sandwich. But the truth is, I think the definition of a sandwich is pretty loose, like Taiwan's bao, the kebab. You know, these are fundamentally all really sandwiches of sorts. And I think the definition of a sandwich is that some kind of bready, fillingy arrangement, but not always. But not always.

Just finally, what would you serve to the leader of the Conservative Party to change her mind? I mean, quite frankly, any of the sandwiches in my sandwich shop. She's clearly got a terrible attitude towards mayonnaise, and that needs to be rectified. Max, it's great to talk to you. I'm hungry now. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Max Halley is the owner of Max's Sandwich Shop in London and the author of Max's World of Sandwiches, a guide to making amazing sandwiches. It's kind of like a thing that people would argue over in a pub. Is a hot dog a sandwich? What's the go-to sandwich? What's the best sandwich? Is mayonnaise an abomination? Do you not eat moist bread, as the leader of the Conservative Party said? Email us, thecurrent at cbc.ca. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.