The First Sandwich

Summary

Long ago, during the Red Era, there was a gnome village that only recently won their freedom from human bondage and they knew that it would be all too easy for a new group of barbaric humans to come in and slap them in chains. The gnomes made a desperate pact with a Faerie lord for protection. Each family would take turns laying out a saucer of milk with a slice of bread at night for the faeries and in return the Faerie Lord would protect the village from invaders. Humans and other big folk who approached the village with hostile intent would fall under a geas that would make them go elsewhere. Unfortunately, the Faerie Lord's protection did not extend to disease and a terrible disease struck down most of their milk cows, and the villagers could not leave out the required milk. The faerie lord did not need the food, but his entourage did. Eventually word came to the lord that the village broke their pact, and he was furious. "What is my household supposed to eat with their bread!?! Dirt!?" The Faerie lord wove a mighty eldritch curse upon the village. "As punishment for your transgression, all of your households shall eat dirt at every meal. I curse you, you will put your food on the bottom of your bread trenchers. Any food served otherwise will turn to poison in your mouths!" So the poor gnomes had to put their food on bread trenchers only to flip them around dumping their food on the ground, so they had to eat their food off of the dirt. Until one day a gnome named Sandweet was about to dump her beautifully prepared bacon, tomato, lettuce, and cheese onto the ground though she did not want to. Then she realized that the "top" and the "bottom" of a bread trencher was just a matter of perspective since both the "top" and the "bottom" of the trencher were essentially the same, it's just a matter of what side the food was on. If both sides of a bread trench could be either the top or bottom, perhaps the sides of the bread could be both the top and the bottom. Sandweet carefully took her prepared ingredients and put them on top of a bread trencher. Then put another piece of bread on top of the food. This was technically on the bottom of a bread trencher but it was still on top of the other one. So she turned it over. Now the old top was the new bottom and the old bottom was the top. Sandweet turned it several more times, then took a deep breath and bit into it. She was not poisoned. Bread on both sides of her food tasted good and had a pleasing texture. It was also nice to not have any dirt in her food. Sandweet showed her fellow gnomes this double bread trencher technique to her fellow gnomes and once the whole village did it, a sparkly smoke poured from every house as the curse was lifted. Once a loophole is found, it breaks a faerie curse. The gnomes could serve and eat their food anyway they chose, but they still used Sandweet's method fairly often because it was tasty. It was also convenient. Sandweet style double trencher meals tasted good hot or cold, and one could eat a multi-ingredient meal neatly one-handed. They gradually learned to make incremental improvements to this method of food preparation and it spurred a general renaisance in all forms of cusine for the gnomes. The gnomes were no longer cursed, but without their faerie protectors, they were vulnerable. But they turned to diplomacy sealing alliances with local humans to gain protection rather than relying on fickle faerie pacts. They shared the secret of the "sandwich" for no human was clever enough to come up with the idea to put meat between two pieces of bread.

Historical Basis

It is noteworthy that gnomes make and eat more sandwiches than other races. Also, there is an old gnomish tradition where a server will turn the sandwich upside at least once before handing to another. A practice picked up by human run sandwich shops.

Part of Spooktober 2024

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