What is a Sandwich?

It's been awhile since I've done a "hot take". H Block Study Hall helped to come up with a topic.

A common question that is asked (by students trying to distract their teachers) is "Is a hotdog a sandwich?"

There are multiple ways to answer this question. First we have to consider why (as one student asked) we feel the need to classify anything at all. Why can't we just let a hot dog be a hot dog, a sandwich be a sandwich, and a pizza be a pizza?

This ability to place objects into categories has been studied quite a bit. Here's a quick summary. (TLDR: Categorization allows us to use the amazing power of our brains to form inferences about our world. As a downside, it can cause us to draw incorrect conclusions, which is especially damaging when applied to people). Anyway, placing things into groups is an incredibly human thing to do. Doing so is a basic expression of our humanity! (By this definition, Carl Linnaeus is one of the most human of humans).

So, classifying things is inescapable. However, answering the hot dog question will depend on how far we are willing to go.

A Very Broad Answer

We could just say, who cares? It's all just food. That's not very human of us. If we had to approach each type of food as a completely different category, we wouldn't be able to draw any comparisons or tell if we it were likely that we'd enjoy something.

Dictionary based answers

• Merriam Webster defines a sandwich as:

a: two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between

b: one slice of bread covered with food

By this definition, a hot dog is a sandwich. So it a lot of other things. Technically, a slice of pizza would be a sandwich here. Dictionary.com agrees with this definition

• Oxford Languages (Google's dictionary) says:

an item of food consisting of two pieces of bread with meat, cheese, or other filling between them, eaten as a light meal.

This is much more exclusive. A hot dog would be out, unless you cut the bun fully in half. In fact, this would also disqualify a foot-long Subway sandwich as that is not "a light meal". Cambridge backs this up.

• Everyone's favorite, the OED, has some clarifications:

An article of food for a light meal or snack, composed of two thin slices of bread, usually buttered, with a savoury (originally spec. meat, esp. beef or ham) or other filling. Frequently with specifying word prefixed indicating contents, as ham sandwich, egg sandwich, watercress sandwich, peanut butter sandwich (see peanut butter n.), or form, as club sandwich (see club n. Compounds C.3), Dagwood sandwich, Denver sandwich, hero sandwich (see hero n. Compounds C.4), poor boy sandwich (see poor boy n.), submarine sandwich (see submarine n.). Occasionally with only one slice of bread, as in open sandwich or open-faced sandwich (see open-face adj. 2), or with biscuits, sliced buns, or cake.

Remember that the OED refers primarily to British uses.

 

• Collin's Dictionary hedges its bet:

A sandwich usually consists of two slices of bread with a layer of food such as cheese or meat between them.

That usually can hide all manner of divergence 

So, you can find a dictionary that will agree with almost anything.

My Definitive Answer

A few years ago, I set out to logically answer this question. I assembled the finest minds that the Iron Eagles robotics team had and we drew this out over a lunch period.

They liked to eat lunch in a Theology classroom.

There's a lot going on with this whiteboard image.  We first had to come up with a definition of sandwich. We went broad: food contained by bread. We then had to define bread: at least flour, water, leavening agent to which heat has been applied.

This definition gives us the following as being definitely sandwiches:

• Traditional sandwich
• Burger
• A calzone or folded over pizza (as long as the toppings are "contained" by the bread)
• Twinkie
• Layer cake
• Bao
• Smores
• Oreos
• Ice cream sandwich
• Soup in a bread bowl
• Onion rings (if the batter is puffy)
• And yes... hot dogs

We had another category of unleavened sandwiches including:

• Taco
• Gyro
• Burrito
• Eggroll
• Quesadilla
• Ravioli
• Chicken nugget
• Pop tart
• Tamales

We were reluctant to include open-faced sandwiches as the food may not be fully contained by the bread.

Yes, it is a broad definition, but it is the only way to reflect the variety of foods that are similar in concept to a sandwich.

I leave you with this image of the best Thanksgiving sandwich I made several years ago. Turkey breast, cranberry sauce, stuffing, the works.

That's homemade bread, too.

Update: 2/8/24

I fixed the strange formatting issue. Also, Mrs. Goertz would like me to share the "sandwich" from the movie Lightyear: bread inside of two pieces of meat.

I really didn't like that movie, so I forgot about it.