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Sandwich fillings have been quite a subject in our family of four boys. Add a few mates along for the ride, er... any food going, and there are quite a variety of tastes. Strange to some but home to my family.

My father gave us a laugh one morning. He and his brother had come home from a night of drinking and hit the fridge in search of anything edible. He found what he thought was camp pie (tinned meat, bully beef?) sitting on a plate. He and uncle decided to spread it on bread and topped it with the ubiquitous tomato sauce. The next morning he complained about the flavour of that meat, telling our mother it was off and not to buy that brand again. She did, because it was the tinned dog food preferred by our new german shepherd pup.

Our universal favourite has always been the "chip buttie". Start with French fries on generously buttered sliced bread or bread roll with a liberal sprinkling of salt - or chicken salt. This old English favourite is usually spiced up with the Australian addition of tomato sauce, English gravy or American mayonnaise. Make it a whopper by adding a fried egg, sliced cheese and some fried onion and/or bacon and you have a heart attack supplement fit for a king or a hungry football team.

My husband has always loved anything left over from last night's dinner. The evolution to sandwich filling began when we lived in an area renowned for electricity failures. The power was out and, unable to fry up some left over vegetables, he just put the mix between two slices of bread and topped the lot with tomato sauce. He also has cold stew, mince, sausages or even cold pasta topped with his favourite sauce.

My sweet-toothed offspring were into lolly sandwiches, usually held together with chocolate spread. This started (I think) with my objection to lollies at lunchtime, so one boy started putting them between two pieces of bread. Well, he called that a sandwich, therefore how could Mum possibly object! He loved jubes, jelly snakes or M&M's in this mixture. While living in a banana growing area the boys also liked mashed banana with grated chocolate or chocolate spread. Failing that they enjoyed banana and honey. Many of these concoctions were my husband's inventions so it is no wonder that my nephews (whose mother boasted that she never bought the sweet white stuff) dubbed him Uncle Sugar.

Then came the advent of the sandwich toaster. Fruit of all kinds went into this wonderful machine, surrounded by bread of course. With the addition of a little cinnamon sugar, apples and bananas became marvellous sweet dishes. Bananas and pears were delicious sandwiched with chocolate which melted in the heat of the toaster. My favourite was peaches combined with a mixture of sugar and ginger. These confections would be topped with ice cream or custard. The only mystery is why my lads did not grow up as fat as pigs! I guess they never stayed still long enough.

My addition to the sandwich maker repertoire was chicken stuffing with cheese, which I discovered one night when the meat had run out. There is no limit to what can be put on a sandwich, except the capacity of your imagination.

Learn more about this author, Annette Radford.
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