[Ads-l] "club sandwich" antedating, 1888

[dave@wilton.net]

OED and Barry Popik have 1889.
 
“Fish Destroyers.” Daily Examiner (San Francisco, California), 29 July 1888, 11/7. ProQuest Newspapers.
 
"'Say, Mr. Ferrin, hadn’t you better point that rifle the other way?' mildly suggested the artist as he hid himself behind a Bohemian Club sandwich."
 
This also militates against the idea that the sandwich originated at New York's Union Club. Although no description of the San Francisco version of the sandwich is given, the early descriptions of the Union Club sandwich bear little resemblance to what we usually call a "club sandwich" today (i.e., only two slices of bread, no bacon, no lettuce, no tomato, often without ham).
 
It's possible that this is just a sandwich obtained at the Bohemian Club, rather than a type of sandwich, but the artist is a newspaper sketch artist on assignment on a fishing boat, hardly the type of person to be a member of that club.

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