The toasted sandwich has been long revered as the staple diet of many students, but as a snack it is widely eaten the world over, as it can be tailored to the palate of the eater.

A toasted sandwich must be made with a toasted sandwich maker; this takes the form of two hinged metal plates which press the sandwich into shape and are heated, toasting the bread and cooking the contents. Toasted sandwich makers can be either be stand-alone devices which are connected to the mains supply, or metal devices that are placed into a hot oven.

The major reason toasted sandwiches are eaten by students is their low price, since they only require two slices of bread, a small coating of butter or margarine and some type of filling. A typical round of two baked-bean sandwiches costs only about five pence (at supermarket prices).

A toasted sandwich takes about three minutes to cook, so it makes an ideal snack food and reduces washing up, since any spillage on the toasted sandwich maker's metal plates simply burns off when it is next used.

Practically anything which is at least semi-solid can be put into a sandwich. h2g2 Researchers have personally made toasted sandwiches out of jam, tinned spaghetti, pineapple cubes and even chopped up Mars bars.

The best ingredients have a mushy consistency (like canned tuna), since any liquid in a toasted sandwich can burn your fingers or tongue. At the other end of the scale, completely solid substances will not fit into the sandwich maker properly, and may stop it from closing properly.