Why you can’t beat a ham sandwich for lunch (again)
If there were a competition for The Most British Survey of All Time, it would have been won by New Covent Garden Soup, which has revealed that more than three-quarters of office workers have eaten the same lunchtime meal for the past nine months. One respondent had eaten a ham sandwich and a piece of fruit every day for 20 years.
Twenty years! That’s 5,200 sandwiches, assuming the routine doesn’t continue over public holidays and the Christmas break. That’s equivalent to 250 pigs’ worth of ham (approximate guess).
That means he – I’m assuming it’s a man because… well, it’s such a male thing to do – has been eating the same lunch since 1997, when Tony Blair was elected, people were still buying Oasis albums and the iPhone hadn’t yet been invented.
My favourite statistic was that 81 per cent of those surveyed said they were “bored” by their lunchtime ritual, even though this boredom is entirely selfimposed. Handy tip: if you’re feeling a bit dispirited at the notion of eating your 5,201st ham sandwich in a row then why not exercise your free will, the ready availability of a local branch of Greggs and maybe just eat something else?
I wonder if part of the problem is the easy allure of familiarity in a world where we are overwhelmed by choice?
Walking out of the office for lunch, you can hardly move for pop-up taquerias, kale smoothie bars, 800 different types of coffee and artisanal pie charabancs manned by waiters sporting ironic moustaches and butchers’ aprons. Isn’t it easier not to have to think?
Besides, in these times of global uncertainty, we must find refuge where we can and console ourselves with the small things we can control. A ham sandwich might not be as inspiring as Proust’s madeleine, but it’s decent, unfussy food that doesn’t ask too much of you. It is the Alan Titchmarsh of lunch: solid, dependable and comforting. You can rely on a ham sandwich.
And who wouldn’t be willing to put up with a little bit of boredom for that?