#sandwich discourse

[telesilla]

My question about the sandwich discourse…is a lobster roll a sandwich? This one requires a few more answer options than the burger debate, because it’s a regional thing. For those unfamiliar, a lobster roll is made of pieces of lobster in seasoned mayo served cold on a soft bun. Well, okay there’s another poll coming because a lobster roll is also pieces of lobster meat tossed in melted butter and served warm on a soft bun. It depends.

[lindwurmkai]

Someone brought back the burger vs. sandwich discourse, which reminds me of a thought I had last time: I find it very curious that people keep being like, "Well what would you call it if I put an X on a Y?" with X and Y being two things that are not usually combined in that manner. Because to me, the very obvious answer to that is nothing in particular. If it's not an established combination, it just ... doesn't have a name? It's an X on a Y??

Like putting peanut butter and jelly on a hotdog bun. That's neither a sandwich nor a hotdog, that's nothing. It's a particularly pathetic "fuck I forgot to buy groceries and now I have to get creative with the weird shit I've got left" meal. It doesn't have a name. Why would it have a name???

[cobragardens]

mustard or ketchup? ....or catsup? dear god.

this is a highly contentious issue in my household.

(im on the side of a good saurkraut, but im not expecting anyone to agree with me.)

I vote ketchup for most hot-food applications. The only place I really enjoy mustard is on a roast-beef sandwich, in which case it should be a 2:1 mix of Dijon mustard with honey. I consider sauerkraut more of a sandwich ingredient than a condiment, but I do agree with you that it's delicious. On its own, no, but between bread with mayo and some kind of roast beast? Mmm.

(Where I do NOT approve of sauerkraut is with sausages. But I do not approve of sausages generally--I feel that the only acceptable format for a dead pig is bacon, and I am suspicious of any meat melange--so I am not the person to consult on sausage-related topics.)

[copperbadge]

THIS JUST IN: Chicken is based, ham is cancelled. Mustard has yet to make a statement on its disconcerting relationship with ham.

[ID: The headline of an article published in November 2024 by Zac Campbell; the headline reads "Now Gen Z are waging war on our sandwiches! How younger Brits are ditching English classics like ham and mustard in favour of fancy woke fillings."]

the filling in question was chicken

[pokemonbattletournament]

I have a hypothesis about the "burger"-"chicken sandwich" discourse. I want to see something.

[geckyjuno]

A Comprehensive Guide to Sandwiches

"Is [X] a sandwich?" - An oft-asked question by fools and intellectuals alike. While it may seem simple on the surface, the cognitive destruction resultant from the line of inquiry has resulted in more than a dozen deaths this year alone, but worry not my salivating sandwich savant; by the end of this guide, you'll be able to DESTROY the arguments of your adversaries, all the while sustaining minimal damage to your psyche.

We'll begin where all good comprehensive guides do, definitions! What we're mainly looking to do here, is establish a number of categories that one might reasonably consider a sandwich. For our purposes, we will be establishing 2 distinct categories: the hand sandwich, which is the original invention of the Earl of Sandwich, and the culinary sandwich, which is a culinary category which contains the wrap, and the stack aka the structural sandwich.

The original hand sandwich is defined as such: a non-bread food inside bread that can easily be consumed one-handed while gambling, without getting the cards greasy.

While the Earl of Sandwich was a visionary in many ways, even his forward-thinking mind couldn't predict the advent of ice cream. As such, I propose it be redefined as follows: a non-bread food inside bread that can easily be consumed one-handed while gambling, without getting the cards greasy or sticky.

Some notable inclusions: The Hot Dog, The Handwich, The 2-inch Submarine Sandwich.

Some notable exclusions: The Michigan Hot Dog, The Sloppy Joe, The 6-inch Submarine Sandwich.

The Culinary Sandwich is defined as such: a non-bread food inside bread.

It is further sub-divided into 2 categories:

The Wrap: a non-bread food inside a single piece of bread.

Some notable inclusions: The Hot Dog, The 6-inch Submarine Sandwich, The Ice Cream Cone.

Some notable exclusions: The Club Sandwich, The Burger, The Ice Cream Sandwich.

The Stack / Structural Sandwich: a non-bread food between 2 or more layers of bread.

Some notable inclusions: The Club Sandwich, The Burger, The Ice Cream Sandwich.

Some notable exclusions: The Hot Dog, The 6-inch Submarine Sandwich, The Ice Cream Cone.

And it's as simple as that! Next time someone asks you if something counts as a sandwich, simply ask them if they mean a hand sandwich, a culinary sandwich, or a structural sandwich! You're sure to end the argument on the spot.

[socially-reluctant]

any time you put ingredients between or inside a bread, it is a sandwich

taco? sandwich.

hot dog? sandwich.

wrap? sandwich.

Ice cream between waffles? sandwich.

Pop tart? sandwich.

pizza? sandwich, but open face.

sandwich is forever, sandwich is everything, sandwich is eternal

[butterflyslinky]

Settle an Argument

[el-sandwich-de-geto]

Honestly, I've started to think many Antis get their impression of proshippers from edgelord teens on the stupid Discord servers and Roblox games they're on...

Yeah, horny teens who thought they were "hot shit" existed as well when us adults were in the "proship-by-default" Internet we grew up in.

Y'all know the type I'm talking about: That one clown who'd call young girls "IRL lolis", send hentai unsolicited, talk way too much about little sisters and comment sexually on people's trauma. (Coincidentally, they'd usually also be the ones who make racist jokes, attack people for their ethnicities, etc; which is a behavior mostly seen in Antis but I digress.)

And yes, to a teen's developing mind, you'd see many of them like the same shit some proshippers do, and you'd assume they're the same people.

The difference is they're dumb hormonal teens with no self control, while most of us who call ourselves proshippers are adults with more than one braincell, who understand the damage censorship would do, no matter our personal feelings about the content. I assure you, 80% of those edgelords have NO IDEA what proship even means.

They're not us and they'll never be.

[lindwurmkai]

The REAL sandwich-related culture shock for me was finding out about PB&J sandwiches. Like I was firmly convinced that in order for something to be a sandwich, it had to have at least three toppings and one of them had to be lettuce or some other leafy green.

Needless to say, "ice cream sandwich" killed the man

(It was at that point I began to suspect it must have something to do with the shape rather than the ingredients)

[the-infamous-eel]

Overly long PB&J rant incoming....

So, we have so many varieties of both peanut butter and jams/jellies, not to mention types of bread, that the combos are too high for me to count this morning. Everything from unsweetened, super crunchy all natural peanut butter to silky smooth, super sweet, added oil stuff. In the jam category there's a similar distribution, from chunky preserves with only the fruit's natural sugars to sweeten it, to stuff that's 90% corn syrup (not really, but close enough). Bread has the same range.

It's all about sweet and salty together. Everyone has their preferred combo. The media saturated "stereotypical" version is creamy peanut butter and overly sweet grape jelly on tasteless and textureless white bread. This is the "Golly, gee, mom!" 1950s pb&j. My favorite is raspberry jam, creamy but not sweet peanut butter, on a softer wheat bread.

Typically, the jam/jelly is from black or red fruits, but I guess stone fruit varieties are an option. No one really goes for citrus fruits.

It's all about your preferred combo and levels of sweet and salty, and what sort of bread. It's very subjective. A pb&j can be the worst slop of a sandwich imagined and they can be divine. Perfection in simplicity. And what would fall into either category for me may be switched for someone else.

I (inexplicably third culture kid at times) grew up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch every day because my mother is normal, and all my English friends were rude about them despite literally never having tried one because "ough it just sounds gross." Anyway I want to see if this is a trend beyond children from southern England.

NOTE TO PEOPLE WHO MAY NOT KNOW - JELLY IN THIS CASE MEANS JAM, NOT JELLO-TYPE FOOD - MANY OF MY PEERS WERE NOT AWARE OF THAT.

[copperbadge]

Just to add to the sandwich conversation: a food writer called MFK Fisher considered the best sandwich to be one that had been sat on to warm it slightly

(Recipe: cookingindex[.]com/recipes/6282/m-f-k-fishers-warm-sandwich[.]htm

I have to say I'm slightly perplexed by the recipe because like...isn't that just a slow motion Cuban sandwich? I guess it's an interesting technique and useful if you don't have a panini press or are going to be in traffic for a while but mayo at body heat for an hour sounds like a recipe for food poisoning.

(I may be influenced by the fact that I don't like ham or mayo all that much, admittedly. :D)

[raayllum]

i really am gonna have to write a knight sibs meta aren't i

[copperbadge]

I'm trying to decide how to apply my "sandwich is an adjective" thesis to this but also I'm both struggling not to yell and impressed at your ability to balance bread.

[ID: A photograph of a slice of bread standing upright on a plate; on top of it is a slice of deli meat and cheese balanced on the edge, and then another upright slice of bread balanced on the deli meat. I think this can truly only be classified as provocation.]

Sandwich, yea or nay?

( @copperbadge )

[ingravinoveritas]

So, in honor of David hosting the BAFTAs this year, The Guardian is soliciting questions for him to answer, and I just needed to share a selection of them...

(Sharing this last one only because the secondhand embarrassment is so strong, and why would you even ask David this. Also agreeing with someone else who said this question is so clearly made for Michael Sheen...)

[tiredlylaughing]

it's so funny to me that in the midst of all this chuckle sandwich is ending