I once heard my in-laws say, "Let's go to McDonald's and pick up some sandwiches."
My first thought was,"I don't think I have ever heard them even consider eating at McDonald's."
My second thought was, "Maybe that’s why they think McDonald's serves sandwiches."
The U.S. Courts and Stephen Colbert have argued what qualifies as a sandwich, and now Gary and I have found ourselves on opposite sides of the debate.
He thinks, first of all, that there is such a thing as a "Filet-O-Fish sandwich," which of course there isn't. ("Show me where it is on the menu," I argued. "Look for a McSandwich.") In his view, any construction of carb, food, carb is a sandwich. Yeah, no.
I say these are the qualities of a sandwich:
A It is constructed of sliced bread, food, then sliced bread.
B. You have to use the word 'sandwich' to know what it is. Turkey sandwich. Egg salad sandwich.
- If you know what it is without calling it a sandwich - Po'Boy, Hoagie, Hamburger, Lobster roll, French Dip - those are not sandwiches. They are Po'Boys and Hoagies and Hamburgers.
- You can only remove the word “sandwich” only if it can be referred to by its initials. See PBJ and BLT.
- You may think you've got me here, but an ice cream sandwich is a parody of a sandwich.
Gary tried to argue Point A, and went back to the Earl of Sandwich, and said that he had his meat brought to him on a roll. I pointed out that Gary was not there, that roll could have been sliced vertically instead of horizontally, and that he is only proving Point B, because his example is the earliest instance of something named Sandwich.
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