The idea of self-sufficiency speaks to the hunter-gatherer fantasist in many of us; unfortunately the reality can be a rather impractical prospect.

A group of artists in Amsterdam learnt this the hard way. They simply wanted to see if they could make a grilled ham and cheese sandwich from scratch, but the lengths they would have to go to presumably weren’t that clear.

Nine months, €35,000 and 20 volunteers later, De Tosti Fabriek (The Sandwich Factory) has 350 sandwiches to show for a considerable amount of hard work and money.

The group started by planting a field of wheat in central Amsterdam before buying two cows and two pigs (two each so they wouldn’t get lonely). Of course the livestock needed somewhere to live so a barn big enough for four large animals had to be built.

For seven months while the wheat grew, the group fed the animals and mucked out the stables before eventually harvesting the grain and grinding the flour. Bread and cheese made, that only left one ingredient for the sandwich, one that would pull at the heart strings to acquire.

Throughout the process, the artists invited local schools to visit the temporary farm to show what is actually involved in putting a sandwich on the plate. Despite the project not being overly productive, it was clearly insightful and it’s always good to see people acting on an idea and bringing it to fruition.