As an American, I've always been so confused by Pret's sandwiches. Specifically, how they're like 95% bread.
Seriously. You get their "famous ham and cheese" and it's a mini baguette with like a single layer of ham and cheese. Like the ham and cheese is a condiment, rather than filling.
It's a stretch to call what they sell "sandwiches". It's closer to just flavored bread. And remember -- it's not just sugar that increases the risk for diabetes, but massive amounts of processed carbs, exactly like Pret.
I'll take my corner deli please, where a sandwich is more like a balanced meal: an actual full serving of protein inside, with lots of tomatoes, peppers and lettuce too.
It's just the different attitude to Sandwiches in France vs America (notice the name of the restaurant you're eating at).
If France, bread is amazing. A baguette from a boulangerie is so tasty all by itself that all you need is a little bit of French butter (which is also incredible, compared to its English and US cousin) and ham, and you're good to go. Too much meat, and you'd overpower the flavor of the bread, which is the reason we're eating a sandwich in the first place.
Personally, I'm also a fan of the American philosophy, where a New York deli will use a a couple slices of bread as a convenient handle to wrap six pounds of (freshly roasted today in an oven at the shop) turkey, so that you don't get mayonnaise on your hands.
I think the disconnect comes from the fact that Pret a Manger's baguettes aren't really anything special. They're just the kinda tough to chew, bendy crusted thing that you get whenever you try to make one in England or the United States. So yeah, if that's all you're getting, coupled with some boring English butter and a slice of ham, I can sympathize with your disappointment.
But next time you're in Paris, be sure to grab a real baguette from a real boulangerie, along with some Paysan Breton butter and a little pack of ham from the quickie mart next door. You'll see what they're going for.
I had to travel to our London offices from California quite a few times over the span of a couple of years, so I became closely acquainted with breakfast at Pret.
Pret's smoked salmon sandwiches (unavailable at US locations) are moderately filling and utterly delicious. A quick bite at the Holborn Pret in the morning before work is a cherished memory.
By comparison, I actively avoid sandwiches from Potbelly/Jimmy John's/Ike's, because chasing down a lump of pickled and brined meats with a cool glass of mayonnaise makes me queasy for hours.
I've eaten both european and american sandwiches. American ones are certainly better "value for money" but only in the sense that they typically feed a family of four.
They're kind-of excessive. the US didn't invent the foot-long sub for no reason, worldwide obesity scores had to be earned.
I have some family in the UK. A few years ago my cousin came to visit me from England and we stopped by a local pizza place (Mike's Pizza in Fairfield, CT for anyone who cares). I got a regular meatball sub and she didn't want anything. When we got home and I unwrapped it, her eyes popped.
Until then, she thought that the sandwiches she saw on American TV shows were just a joke: she had no idea that our sandwiches were actually that big (yeah, Mike's used to really stuff them, but still). As she explained, back in the UK, you could maybe get one half the size and even then it would be unusual.
I nodded in understanding as I sucked the entire thing down.
That's true of some things at American sit-down restaurants.
But hardly true for a cold sandwich at a sandwich shop. Even a Subway "footlong" club sandwich is just 620 calories. Assuming a 2,000 cal/day diet, that's a little under a third of what you need. Or, in other words, exactly the right size for a balanced lunch if your calorie requirements are on the lesser side.
How exactly does 620 calories feed a family of four? Or how is it excessive at all?
Obviously it goes without saying the sandwich is the complete meal (no adding soda or chips).
Hyper-Bowl would describe typical US portions. The good thing is, that its also common to get "to go" boxes alongside so you can reasonably eat twice for one purchase.
It is very rare (on my personal observation, I have no stats here so its anecdata) for anyone to walk out of a ready-made food outlet without the soda and chips.
I have also felt at times "pret" was a bit stingy. If I get a turkey and brie sandwich, I want the brie to be visible, not hypothetical.
Katz' deli, I didn't have a boy in the army to send a salami, but the thickness of the meat layer in my salt beef sandwich was .. unreal. I think, they do this because its now expected. In most salt beef outlets I've been to which didn't feature in films, they are a bit more reasonable.
There is an Aussie food called "a halal snack pack" which is a heart-attack in a styrofoam box. Its a box of gyros/kebab/doner/shwarma meat, with all the trimmings but no bread: healthy, since less carbs. Oh wait, its poutine too: they put fries and cheese in there...
The pastrami (or corned beef) sandwich thing at the better known NYC Jewish delis is a bit of a Manhattan trope. And, yeah, people mostly either split it (for extra cost) or they take half of it home.
Back in the 80s, I used to get hot salt beef rolls with my Dad in an inner-london cafe when he got off the sleeper from Edinburgh, coming to London to go to meetings. They heated it up with the steam-jet of the cappucino machine...
This is an important point - a 24oz Coke is about 250 calories, and a 1.75oz bag of Doritos is also about 250, so “making it a meal” adds an additional 500 calories on top of any sandwich.
Well sure, but I'm making the point that a standard American sandwich simply isn't excessive. That the notion/caricature of a regular American lunch sandwich being unhealthily large is simply incorrect.
Of course you can get some mega-cheese melt if you want, just like you can get a triple quarter pounder if you want. But I don't see anybody who sees those as examples of a normal portion. Within America they're seen as excessive. They're not representative of a normal American lunch.
I think this is one of those things we're going to disagree about. Within the America I see as a conference attendee seeking lunch outside of meetings in the food malls, portion control is out of control. Overall, yes, you can eat healthy anywhere. There is a "value" proposition which drives a lot of people to order bigger than they need. The same "value" proposition drives food outlets to compete on size for the same dollar cost. Carbohydrates are a cheap way to achieve size/bulk. Adding extra carbs is low input cost, high profit outcome.
Super-size-me as a film required the market to exist. They didn't make the problem up.
Technically sandwiches are often sold at a loss and are just there to sell customers on the high-margin items like drinks and fries. So you're partly right but it doesn't really make for a motivation to increase sandwich size without limit. They'd still rather sell smaller sandwiches.
Sandwiches in the UK are a scandal. Pret got huge in part because their sandwiches we so much better than the other options. Imagine that!
When Pret launched, your options were a packet sandwich from Boots or something, which would be stale sliced bread with a single layer of tasteless waxy cheese, or something from a sandwich shop, where the choices are (1) tuna mayonnaise that has been there since yesterday (2) a cheese bun wrapped in cling film and kept in a fridge (3) a (one piece of incinerated) bacon, (limp) lettuce, and (tasteless, but mercifully thinly sliced) tomato.
Things are a bit better now, but to be honest, still terrible. You can wander around New York or Madrid and find a random sandwich place on a street corner that would be in the top 10 in London.
My theory is that this a manifestation of a broader cultural weakness of (most) British people, which is that they can't imagine that a better world is possible. Nobody looks at that "famous ham and cheese" and thinks, "okay, but what if there were five slices of each of those, and the bread tasted of something, and there was lashings of a delicious wholegrain mustard dressing?". Because they don't imagine it, they don't demand it, and Pret keeps on churning out abysmal lunches.
I'm not sure I agree with this AT ALL. I've spent most of my adult life split between New York (5+ years), California (5+ years), and also Berlin and Paris for a few years. I'm originally British and live in London now. I've eaten sandwiches in all of these countries (obviously).
Pret's sandwiches hold up to any sandwiches I've had in any of those countries. I've had the occasional better sandwich (especially in Paris), but I would take Pret's sandwiches over most of the crap sandwiches I ate in New York. New York sandwiches tend to assume that packing in TONS of shit quality meat makes the sandwich better. I don't actual like to eat through an inch of American-quality processed meat to mask the fact that the bread is crap.
French style sandwiches have less total filling but the filling itself is high quality and tasty, including the butter. Also the bread tends to be extremely delicious by itself.
The only sandwiches I would get in New York are freshly made bagels from the better bagel places in Brooklyn. However, this is comparing apples to oranges because this whole discussion is about pre-made sandwiches which you get off a shelf and go, not freshly made sandwiches.
I currently live in London and eat Pret all the time.
I have easily found better sandwich shops than Pret in NYC, Boston, Chicago, LA, Berlin, Paris, SF... I could go on.
Specifically in NYC there are some amazing sandwich places all over Manhattan (though that's not to say the other boroughs don't have excellent shops as well). My favorites are generally the Italian-style sandwich shops which have great Italian cured meats.
In response to your last paragraph, I think that's part of what people are complaining about – there are precious few places in London where you can get a freshly made sandwich, and for being pre-made, Pret isn't much cheaper than a lot of the fresh-made sandwiches you can get in other countries.
Also I think fresh-made is maybe giving a bit too much credit to that idea, as Subway is freshly made but I'd much rather have a Pret.
Dude those bodega deli sandwiches in NYC are mostly shit. Cheap bagel, cheap bread, cheap meat. The only good thing is the "value for money" since you get basically an inch of meat, but the meat is the cheapest bottom of the shelf quality meat you can buy.
Trust me, I spent years getting those bodega sandwiches in New York and sure, when you're drunk they seem good, but it's not quality fare by any stretch of the imagination.
That's not my experience, every office I've worked in has had a nearby sandwich shop where you could choose wholegrain bread and a wide selection of fillings and watch them make it for you.
My theory is that this a manifestation of a broader cultural weakness of (most) British people, which is that they can't imagine that a better world is possible.
Your comment made me laugh out loud. It's so true, and even worse in the regions than in London.
As with most things in the UK, price comes before quality. Sainsburys, who used to be my "Thank God there's an okay sandwich" place when on the road switched to a lower quality supplier, to an online backlash [1]. I can vouch for the quality drop; after that there wasn't much difference between the major supermarkets.
A friend of mine from France was here in the USA and we got sandwiches. When he opened his he was shocked and disappointed on the overstuffed size of it. “What is this? How can someone eat this? This is ridiculous”
Or words to that effect. He was genuinely confused by the size. And couldn’t believe how terrible the bread was.
To be fair they weren’t great sandwiches in general. I sort of agree with him though that a French proportion on a jambon buerre is better than a typical ham and cheese sandwich here.
These sort of places prey on people who have no idea what a proper amount of protein looks like. A single slice of ham is so small an amount it’s practically a rounding error in the overall scheme of a balanced diet.
You're basing that, I assume, on the US Recommended Daily Allowance for protein which is 0.8g protein/kg body weight -- or 65 g for your example of a 180 lb person.
But this metric is widely misunderstood [1] -- "it’s the minimum amount you need to keep from getting sick — not the specific amount you are supposed to eat every day."
If you follow the link, you'll see that doctors actually recommend around double that for full health, and that Americans on the whole actually consume too little protein in comparison. The idea that we consume too much protein is actually a long-popular myth.
So no, the Pret sandwich is nowhere even close to half the protein you should be consuming daily.
"Rodriguez was among more than 40 nutrition scientists who gathered in Washington, D.C., for a “Protein Summit” to discuss research on protein and human health. The summit was organized and sponsored by beef, egg, and other animal-based food industry groups" I mean...
Yes, and here is what's at the end of the linked paper:
"She has received research grant support from The Beef Checkoff and the National Dairy Council and compensation for speaking engagements with The Beef Checkoff and the National Dairy Council"
Seriously. You get their "famous ham and cheese" and it's a mini baguette with like a single layer of ham and cheese. Like the ham and cheese is a condiment, rather than filling.
It's a stretch to call what they sell "sandwiches". It's closer to just flavored bread. And remember -- it's not just sugar that increases the risk for diabetes, but massive amounts of processed carbs, exactly like Pret.
I'll take my corner deli please, where a sandwich is more like a balanced meal: an actual full serving of protein inside, with lots of tomatoes, peppers and lettuce too.