Barry Enderwick is eating his way through history, one sandwich at a time. Every day from his home in San Jose, California, Enderwick posts a cooking video from a recipe that time forgot. From the 1905 British book “Salads, Sandwiches and Savouries,” Enderwick prepared the New York Sandwich.

The recipe called for 24 oysters, minced and mixed with mayonnaise, seasoned with lemon juice and pepper, and spread over buttered day-old French bread.

Rescuing recipes from the dustbin of history doesn’t always lead to culinary success. Sampling his New York Sandwich, Enderwick decried it as “a textural wasteland. No, thank you.”  Into the trash bin it went!

But Enderwick’s efforts have yielded his own cookbook, a collection of some of the strangest – and sometimes unexpectedly delicious – historical recipes you’ve never heard of. 

He even has a traveling stage show: “Sandwiches of History Live.”

From the condiments to the sliced bread, this former Netflix executive has become something of a sandwich celebrity. “You can put just about anything in-between two slices of bread,” he said. “And it’s portable! In general, a sandwich is pretty easy fare. And so, they just have universal appeal.”

Though the sandwich gets its name famously from the Fourth Earl of Sandwich, the earliest sandwich Enderwick has eaten dates from 200 B.C.E. China, a seared beef sandwich called Rou Jia Mo.

He declared it delicious. “Between the onions, and all those spices and the soy sauce … oh my God! Oh man, this is so good!”

While Elvis was famous for his peanut butter and banana concoction, Enderwick says there’s another celebrity who should be more famous for his sandwich: Gene Kelly, who he says had “the greatest man sandwich in the world, which was basically mashed potatoes on bread. And it was delicious.”

Whether it’s a peanut and sardine sandwich (from “Blondie’s Cook Book” from 1947), or the parmesian radish sandwich (from 1909’s “The Up-To-Date Sandwich Book”), Enderwick tries to get a taste of who we were – good or gross – one recipe at a time.

RECIPE: A sophisticated club sandwich
Blogger Barry Enderwick, of Sandwiches of History, offers “Sunday Morning” viewers a 1958 recipe for a club sandwich that, he says, shouldn’t work, but actually does, really well! 

MORE: “Sunday Morning” 2024 “Food Issue” recipe index
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Story produced by Anthony Laudato. Editor: Chad Cardin.