From compressed yeast to cream cheese and cornflakes: one man’s search for the world’s greatest sandwich

Barry Enderwick has recreated more than 700 sandwich recipes from history, dating from 200BC to the present day. What has he learned – and crucially – which are the tastiest?Barry Enderwick’s adventures in sandwiches began with a filling of chopped raw oysters. It was, he says, “so gross”. Still, his epic sandwich exploration continued with gusto. Since December 2018, Enderwick – a one-man historical re-enaction society, armed with mayonnaise and old cookery books – has recreated recipes for his social media accounts, Sandwiches of History. What began as occasional posts on Instagram, and then TikTok, has now turned into a daily lunchtime creation for hundreds of thousands of followers. Its success has come as something of a surprise.“This shouldn’t have worked,” he says. “I’m a 55-year-old balding guy on social media; there’s no way I should have had anybody following me. I can speculate that amid all the people dancing, shaking, doing whatever, I’m the guy standing in his kitchen lik