Sandwiches with kettle chips seem to be the best lunch for people anywhere. Sandwiches are diverse, unique, amazing. Now i’m just hungry! Whenever I think of sandwiches I think of a question my dad asked me about two years ago. Let’s give you readers some back round. My dad and I were sitting at dinner one night, and most of the time my dad asks weird questions that we forget withing minutes. My father looked at me and with a straight face asked me “what makes a sandwich a sandwich?”. As we both grew more curious a quick google search told us. Dictionary.com gave us the exact definition ” two or more slices of bread of the like with a layer of meat, fish, cheese, etc. between each pair” (Dictionary.com). This definition helps but just lead to my dad and I to more questions like “is a burger a sandwich”, “How About a Hotdog”, “where do you draw the line”.

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Is A Burger A Sandwich? 

With some more reasurch my dad and i found a website called English Language and Usage tells me they follow the definiton of a sandwich but also pointed that reasturants offer “Hamburgers, Sandwiches, and Salads” (English Language and Usage). Another website told us “hot dogs and hamburgers are very much sandwhiches” (the daily meal). Now we have the answer but why does this feel so empty? It was too easy for figure it out. So we asked a littler question “why dont we call a burger a sandwich when it really is?”. I found a websit that askes “why do americans call a burger a sandwich” ( Forum Body Building), which confuses me, this is a website in Austria and its asking the United States? I dont kn0w about you but i have never heard someone order the “bacon cheese hamburger sandwich”. Another website asks why “United States And Canada Call a Burger a Sandwich” (UK Answer Yahoo). So the question remains do we call a burger a sandwich? I think we should, we are all about labels here in the United States why not label food as well?

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How About A Hot Dog?

as i said in the previous paragraph beifly, Hot Dogs are considered a sandwich. But why dont we call them a sandwich as well as the burger? Hot Dogs are hard to explain, becuase yes they follow the definition of a sandwich but its complicated. It is  meat in between a bun but why is it harder to see a hot dog harder to notice as a sandwich than than a burger? My father had given me the idea that its hard for me to see a hotdog as a sandwich because the bun isnt all the way cut, or maybe because we eat them sideways intstead of right side up. The atlantic tells us that ” a hot dog is not a sandwich” (The Atlantic) purely because people dont eat hotdogs in a horizontal position. So a hot dog is a sandwich but is harder to reconize because we eat them in a different matter. Weird.

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Where Do We Draw The Line?

The line is a very thin line to be exact. If BUrgers and hotdogs can be considered a sandwich should the “cheese sandwich” the school lunch gives you when you run out of lunch money be a sandwich? I mean it’s only cheese on a sale old bun… I really have no sources on this part of my text, so bare with me this is all coming from the wierd mind of mine. If we can safely consider a burger as a sandwich can’t we safely assume a bread sandwich is also a sandwich ( two pieces of bread with a piece in the middle) I mean by definitions it’s a stretch, but when doesn’t America stretch the rules a little bit? If that is a sandwich then can I just eat some bread with butter and call that a sandwich also? these are all silly sandwiches but sandwiches at the least. America loves their sandwiches our we all must agree on one thing. At one point enough is enough, Sandwiches need to be determined and there must be a way to determine that. Luckily I found a website that helps with that, The Atlantic has a four step plan to figure out if your sandwich is really a sandwich or if you’re just faking it to mess with our minds.

Atlanics four step plan consistes of ”

1. To qualify as “a sandwich,” a given food product must, structurally, consist of two (2) exterior pieces that are either separate or mostly separate;
2. Those pieces must be primarily carbohydrate-based—so, made of bread or bread-like products;
3. The whole assemblage must have a primarily horizontal orientation (so, sitting flush with a plate rather than perpendicular to it); and
4. The whole assemblage must be fundamentally portable”(The Atlantic).

There now you yourself and your crazy dad (like mine) can truly figure out if what you’re eating is really a sandwich. One last question i leave to you to discuss in the comments section is “is a taco considered a sandwich?”

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