The Paste & Potted Sandwich

Smoked Mackerel Pâté Sandwich

Two hot-smoked fillets, cream cheese, lemon, horseradish and a fork: the spread that makes Britain's cheapest oily fish fit for guests, on granary toast or a soft bap, with a quota war behind it.

Sandwich Spread

Heinz Sandwich Spread is the relish that needs no second ingredient: chopped vegetables suspended in a sweet-sharp salad-cream emulsion, taken edge to edge on soft white bread.

Salmon Paste Sandwich

Pink salmon paste spread in a thin film on buttered white bread: the British larder spread rendered to a smooth, flake-free pink, run by the discipline of using almost none of it.

Potted Shrimp

Tiny brown shrimps potted in spiced butter under a clarified cap, melted out onto brown bread: the Morecambe Bay potting trade since 1799, lifted into a sandwich.

Meat Paste Sandwich

The cheapest jar on the potted-paste shelf: smooth milled meat of beef, ham, or chicken on buttered white bread, the British cupboard standby Shippam's of Chichester began potting in 1894.

Ham Paste

The mild pink scrape of the British paste shelf, ham milled smooth with butter into a film thin enough for a lunchbox. Its whole reason is keeping.

Gentleman's Relish

The Patum Peperium anchovy sandwich, where the whole craft is dosing the loudest paste on the English shelf down to a faint film over butter, cut small for the tea tray.

Fish Paste Sandwich

A scrape of strong potted fish paste on lightly buttered bread: the Victorian preserve that kept fish in a cupboard for months, salted so hard the discipline is using almost none.

Crab Paste

The dark brown body meat of the crab, cooked down and pounded with butter, mace and cayenne, then sealed under a butter cap. The British potted-shellfish spread that carried the coast inland.

Crab Paste Sandwich

A thin tan layer of brown crab paste on buttered white bread: the sweet, deep body meat of the crab boiled down to a spread, the seaside eaten inland off a shelf all year.

Bloater Paste

Bloater paste is the strong, gamey corner of the British paste shelf, and the reason is the cure: the herring is smoked whole, guts left in, so the fish ferments faintly before it is ever potted.

Bloater Paste Sandwich

Bloater (whole smoked herring) paste on bread; regional specialty.

Beef paste is roast beef with its whole structure cooked, pounded, and seasoned out of it: a dark fat-bound spread scraped thin on buttered white, sealed in the jar that kept a British larder stocked.

Anchovy Paste Sandwich

Anchovy paste on bread; very salty, intense.