I never understood the British sandwich culture. I'm currently living and working London and the number of times people will just go for a quick sandwich, which typically means some depressing mayo filled abomination with a packet of crisps and a softdrink is depressing when there are genuinely nice places to have lunch, for not much more.
What is even more mind boggling is when you work with British people abroad at places with genuinely great food culture, like Tokyo or Singapore, and they then lament that there is 'no where around to get decent sandwich`, by which they mean their industrially produced cardboard tasting abomination, since typically you can get actually good sandwiches in those places as well as a variety of other thing.
It is not clear to me whether you are referring to Pret's sandwiches. I am not British, but when in London for work I tend to love Pret's. I found their offering healthier and tastier than basically any other fast food alternative in any other place in the world.
What's to understand? I saw people at lunch eating wrapped rice things in Japan from the 7/11 which weren't that great compared to other places I could eat (especially the 'fresh' ones which were easy to find), but people still ate them.
In Singapore there were amazing food centers, and I saw Singaporeans eating at McDonald's! Why were they doing that when there were so many good options about?
I've never understood why people are so judgemental about what others eat.
Sorry, yes it came across as judgemental. I guess it's because food, especially lunch, is such an important thing in my life, pretty much the highlight of the day, it just makes me a bit sad when it's not the case for others.
For some people, perhaps a lot of people, many meals are just fuel. Those sandwiches are an acceptable unit of fuel, they come in an acceptable variety at acceptable prices and can be bought in an acceptable amount of time.
You don't have to make decisions about what to order, you don't have to queue (or at least not for very long), it's acceptable fuel.
What is even more mind boggling is when you work with British people abroad at places with genuinely great food culture, like Tokyo or Singapore, and they then lament that there is 'no where around to get decent sandwich`, by which they mean their industrially produced cardboard tasting abomination, since typically you can get actually good sandwiches in those places as well as a variety of other thing.