THE Earl of Sandwich has a lot to answer for... and now he has a week named after him, too. Next week is National Sandwich Week when even, more than ever, we'll be encouraged to eat on the move. But at least when the Earl famously refused to interrupt his game of cards to eat (and who said grazing was a modern phenomenon?) all he wanted was two slices of bread and a bit of beef. If only it were that simple...

Once upon a time, the choice was not much more than between cheese, tomato and ham, with pickle or without, brown bread or white. But now, sandwiches have become a melting pot of all cultures.

The breads themselves come from all corners of the globe and what goes inside them is not so much a filling, more an elaborate art form.

So, do you want bagels, baguettes, pitta pockets, tortilla wraps, flatbreads, Swedish bread, German rye, croissants, ciabatta, tomato bread, olive bread, onion bread? They all sound very interesting, but the trouble is that tortillas too often taste like a roll of wet flannel, bagels can have all the taste and texture of steamed blotting paper and baguettes crack your teeth. They might be different, but they don't necessarily taste better.

And inside, the list of variations on fillings could probably fill the rest of this newspaper. All that's before we start on the slimmers' versions and such incidental niceties as mustard or mayo.

The quest for variety and novelty leads to some very peculiar results. There's a Marks and Spencer roll filled with ham (good), cheese (good), pineapple (mm) and then the roll is finished off with a pizza topping (excessive). Sometimes you can have just too much of a good thing.

Chicken Tikka is everywhere of course, as befits our new national dish. But our favourite cross cultural reference has one foot firmly in the North-East of England the other in Mexico. Yes, the Chicken Salsa Stotty - proving that, as far as sandwiches are concerned, the world is a very small place. We have not yet spotted the Pease Pudding Tortilla, but feel it can't be far away.

MOST MULTI-CULTURAL

Chicken Salsa Stotty from Peters £1.55

HHHHH

Unusual but tasty.

ADVENTUROUS AND SUCCESSFUL

BOOTS Shapers Cheese and Onion Swedish Bread £1.70 HHHHH

Looked unappealing, as if the bread might be crisp and hard. In fact, the bread was good and the filling tasty.

GREGGS Ham and Cheese Croissant £1.45 HHHHH

Excellent. Really fresh with lots of smokey ham and cheese.

MARKS AND SPENCER Count on Us Tunisian Style Tuna Flatbread £1.90 HHHHH

Tuna and vegetables, spicy mayonnaise with baby spinach and lime. Delicious blend of flavours.

SAINSBURYS Cajun Chicken Wrap £1.50 HHHHH

Spicy chicken, nicely textured tortilla. Other wraps in the range were equally good.

TESCO Bean and Cheese Tortilla Wrap £1.79 HHHHH

Vegetarian option, crunchy and tasty. Others in the range weren't so good, chicken salad was damp, ham was watery.

WEIGHTWATCHERS Chicken Fajita £1.89 HHHH

Chicken with roasted peppers and salsa in a tortilla. Fresh and crunchy.

BOOTS Shapers Oriental chicken and mango flatbread £1.90 HHHH

Good flavour but a bit thin on the filling. Maybe that's why it's Shapers.

GREGGS Tortilla Wrap £1.99 HHHH

Very nice chicken, but not much of it.

TOO EXCITING FOR THEIR OWN GOOD

BOOTS Mexican Chicken Calzone £2.10

Basically a spicy chicken, tomatoey mix in a sandwich of folded pizza dough. Very doughy. Very solid. Very fattening. Not very nice.

MARKS AND SPENCER Cheese and pineapple pizzatini £2.00

Ham, cheese, pineapple, tomato mayonnaise and pizza topping. Definite case of overkill.

MARKS AND SPENCER Tuna Melt £1.90

Do you like eating cold toasted cheese? This was tuna mayonnaise in soft white bread with a grilled cheesey topping and was a perfectly decent tuna sandwich, spoilt by clammy melted cheese.

THOMAS THE BAKERS Ciabbata Fromaggio £1.25

Crunchy cheese topping on a fairly ordinary bread roll. The ham version had much too much, not very nice, mayo.

TRADITIONAL AND TASTY

CO-OP Tuna and Sweetcorn baguette £1.49; Coronation Chicken £1.79

Only a few years ago these would have considered incredibly exotic. Today, they're quite ordinary - but very well done.

Also... MORRISONS Just Ham Baguette £1.39; Roast Beef and Onion Baguette £1.49

Fresh bread, decent meat, plenty of it. Sometimes, the simplest things are best.

PS: REMEMBER, if you're weight watching, sandwiches might only be a snack but they can pack a terrific number of calories, easily up to 500 and more.

PPS: The Earl of Sandwich's great great great something or other grandson has just started a new business. Yes, that's right, a sandwich company. Blood will out.

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