Open Sandwich - in Various Countries

In Various Countries

An open sandwich is a slice of fresh bread, with different spreads, butter, liver pâté, cheese spreads, cold cuts such as roast beef, turkey, ham, bacon, salami, beef tongue, mortadella, head cheese or sausages like beerwurst or kabanos, and vegetables like bell peppers, tomatoes, radish, scallion and cucumber. Open sandwiches like this are consumed in Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland as well as other parts of Europe, and North America as a regular breakfast and supper food item. The American tongue toast is offered as an entrée for breakfast, lunch, and supper and as an hors d'œuvre for formal parties.

In Great Britain, open sandwiches are rare outside of Scandinavian delicatessens. Instead, there is "on toast" (e.g., cheese on toast). However, this is not considered a sandwich.

The Dutch and Flemish Uitsmijter arrives on a large plate with large slices of usually white bread, topped with a selection of meats, cheeses, vegetables and possibly an egg. The dish is often served as a hearty breakfast.

Open sandwich is the common, traditional sandwich type in the Nordic countries, Estonia, the Netherlands, Russia, Lithuania and Latvia, where it is typically eaten at breakfast, as lunch or other meal.

The Scandinavian open sandwich (Danish: smørrebrød, Norwegian: smørbrød, Swedish: smörgås) consists of one piece of buttered bread, often whole-grain rye bread (Danish: rugbrød, Swedish: rågbröd), topped with, for instance, cold steak, shrimps, smoked salmon, caviar, hard boiled eggs, bacon, herring, fish fillets, liver pâté (Danish: leverpostej, Norwegian: leverpostei Swedish: leverpastej), and/or small meatballs. This is typically complemented by some herbs and vegetables such as parsley, cold salad, thinly sliced cucumber, tomato wedges and/or pickled beets etc. on the same slice of bread. A condiment, such as mayonnaise, or mayonnaise-based dressing is also often included in some form. An old traditional replacement for butter on a piece of bread with herring is pig fat. There are many variations associated with the smørrebrød/smørbrød/smörgås and there are even special stores, cafés and restaurants (especially in Denmark) that specialize in them. In Finland the sandwich is called voileipä which also means "butter bread" and the Finnish rye bread is ruisleipä.

Sweet toppings are commonly used for breakfast in the Netherlands and Belgium: e.g. sprinkles, vlokken, or muisjes, next to the more widespread peanut butter, honey, jam, and chocolate spread.

In the United States an open faced sandwich may also refer to a slice of bread topped with warm slices of roasted meat and gravy (called a "Manhattan" in some areas), or bread topped with Welsh rarebit. This is also done in Scandinavian countries, where they eat open faced sandwiches with fried meat and fried fish quite often.

In former Czechoslovakia is popular type of open sandwich called chlebíčky (pl., sg. chlebíček) - slant ways cut slice of veka (long narrow white bread) spread with butter and/or with various combinations of mayonnaise salads and hard boiled egg, cheese, ham, salami, smoked fish (salmon or sprats or pickled herring), tomato, pickled cucumber, lettuce, raw onion or other vegetable, etc.