I think it's a combination of economics, climate, and transport distances?
Butter goes liquid in normal summer temperatures in a lot of the US. You could use it in baking, etc., if you had a springhouse or icebox to keep it cool, it's not hot enough here that we switched to ghee, but it's not something you'd just have in arms' reach in the kitchen all the time without A/C and a fridge. And it melts and separates, and/or goes rancid, if shipped long distances unrefrigerated (and when the US was creating its cuisine, there were a lot of long distances, unrefrigerated.) Mayonnaise will also go rancid, but you can make it onsite out of oil and eggs, which have slightly longer shipping lifespans, even in the heat, so it was used in a lot of urban contexts where sandwiches got popular (delis and restaurants).
And peanut butter lasts forever at almost any temperature and was super, super cheap in the US for a long time (still is really). So if you just wanted something with a bit of protein and oil and creaminess on your bread, you'd use mayonnaise for savories and peanut butter for most of the rest. (sometimes soft cheese.)
Which is probably related to my vague perception that butter-based sandwiches are hoity-toity rich people fancy food....
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I suspect it's because we usually put on either peanut butter or mayonnaise instead.
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Butter goes liquid in normal summer temperatures in a lot of the US. You could use it in baking, etc., if you had a springhouse or icebox to keep it cool, it's not hot enough here that we switched to ghee, but it's not something you'd just have in arms' reach in the kitchen all the time without A/C and a fridge. And it melts and separates, and/or goes rancid, if shipped long distances unrefrigerated (and when the US was creating its cuisine, there were a lot of long distances, unrefrigerated.) Mayonnaise will also go rancid, but you can make it onsite out of oil and eggs, which have slightly longer shipping lifespans, even in the heat, so it was used in a lot of urban contexts where sandwiches got popular (delis and restaurants).
And peanut butter lasts forever at almost any temperature and was super, super cheap in the US for a long time (still is really). So if you just wanted something with a bit of protein and oil and creaminess on your bread, you'd use mayonnaise for savories and peanut butter for most of the rest. (sometimes soft cheese.)
Which is probably related to my vague perception that butter-based sandwiches are hoity-toity rich people fancy food....
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