John Lewis’ 150 Years Ham and Cheese Sandwich

The ham and cheese sandwich from John Lewis’ A Place to Eat

Everybody’s favourite department store is currently celebrating 150 years since the opening of its flagship Oxford Circus store in 1864.  I often wonder what life would be like without John Lewis.  I am so fond of it that my best friend and I refer to it as ‘The Mothership’.

Department store cafes are a strange beast, evoking images of their 1990s glory days when you would trundle up the escalator from homewares for a cup of tea and a scone, and a quick trip to the loo, before heading home.  They still exist in their many guises; some have drastically improved and installed restaurants (Selfridges) whilst others are like stepping back in time to the above (BHS).

There seems to have been cafes in branches of John Lewis since time began and although they have moved with the times somewhat, there is still a sense of nostalgia:  the coffee is still served in teacups and you can still buy the largest scones on earth from the cake counter alongside the more modern vertiginously iced cupcakes.  The omelette station still seems to have the biggest queue which seems strange to me as I have never eaten an omelette in a cafe. Ever.

A Place to Eat, as it has been called for some time, is also celebrating 150 years of John Lewis by offering up some of the old favourites on the sandwich counter.  Prawn mayo baguettes with cucumber curled in a 1970s fashion and tuna sandwiches with a lot of cress sit next to the more modern offerings.  I opted for the heritage ham and cheese. The oldies are the goodies.

The baguette was at least a foot long, so was cut in half by the gentleman behind the counter.  Thick slices of ham were folded into the sandwich with triangles of cheese sticking vertically up from the slit like yellow shark’s fins.  Among the mixed leaves I detected a smear of sandwich pickle.

The bread was fresh and the ham good-quality and well-flavoured.  The cheese was a fairly generic medium cheddar, but nice enough.  The problem was that the whole thing was a little dry and didn’t quite have enough pickle.  A quick trip to the condiment station (that had just about everything by the way) procured a little sachet of mayonnaise that sorted it out right away.  Ham and cheese sandwiches have become a little hard to find of late, but a good one is a thing of beauty.  This is a good one, a little more pickle and it would be a great one.