"Hillel the Elder is often credited as having been the inventor of the "sandwich" in the 1st century B.C.E. well over a thousand years before John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich.
"This is based on a part of the Passover Seder (the annual commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt), in the section of Korech, where the Haggadah, the ancient liturgy, instructs participants to take the matzo and wrap it around the bitter herbs and eat them together whilst saying in Hebrew: This is a remembrance of Hillel in Temple times - This is what Hillel did when the Temple existed: he used to enwrap the Paschal lamb, the matzo and the bitter herbs and eat them as one. In the Ashkenazi tradition the usual practice is to do this by making a matzo and lettuce/horseradish sandwich."
And to think, all we credit for are bagels.
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2 comments:
The Teimani Jews have a soft matzah, like a laffa. Their Pesach "sandwich" must have been a shwarma!
I think it's a machlokes in Tosfos, Some want to say that Hilel had an open sandwich. Others say it was a double decker sandwich and yet others say it was a regular sandwich. The Mishne Brurah want to say it was a regular sandwich but he brings down another machlokoes whether you are allowed to cut the sandwich and if you do, is it a diagnol cut or regular cut. ;)
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