You eat food, I eat food, everyone eats food. It’s become a cornerstone of the human experience. It is ingrained in our culture, in the way we live. 

Some people often get very defensive over their food. Italians will go on about the authenticity of pizza. 

The weird food thing I get defensive over? 

All food is a sandwich.

That’s right, all food. Any kind of food. 

Every time I say this, people will start listing foods that they think can’t be sandwiches. But every time they fail to trip me up on this. It’s a hill I’m willing to die on. 

Before anything else we need to set up some ground rules. When I say any and all food can be a sandwich, that doesn’t include raw ingredients. Even I can’t make the argument that a red bell  pepper or a single artichoke is a sandwich. The fact is that all prepared and created dishes are sandwiches. The moment you put effort into what you’re eating, it goes through a metamorphosis and is a sandwich. 

Another ground rule we need to get out of the way is the definition of a sandwich. We can’t use the elitist Webster’s definition of a sandwich because that definition contradicts itself. All dictionaries have this narrow definition that a sandwich consists of meat and cheese between slices of bread. 

The first reason this definition is wrong is the ingredients list. Most definitions will concede some amount of variety, but there are instances of sandwiches without meat or cheese at all, like an ice cream sandwich. That contradiction alone should render this definition moot. 

The other issue with this definition is how restricted its view of the bread is. The definition limits the bread to needing to be on either side of a sandwich. But what of hoagie bread, or sandwiches that come from popular restaurant chain Subway? The bread in these sandwiches only fully covers one side and half supports two others. Yet it is still a sandwich. 

This shows that the bread only needs to support the rest of the dish in some way; it’s not restricted to two opposite sides. This broadens the basis of a sandwich considerably to include hotdog. In this instance, the bread is also supporting the rest of the meal in the same way a hoagie does. And if this is the basis of our support, then the next logical inclusion is the humble taco. 

But we need to dig deeper into this. If the amount of support required isn’t limited to two opposite sides, then what prevents it from supporting the whole meal from every side? In this regard, raviolis and Hot Pockets are also sandwiches. 

But what about sandwiches that don’t use bread? You’ll notice an increase in restaurants substituting the bread in hamburgers and sandwiches with lettuce (this is an indicator that the brainwashing is wearing off). So if a sandwich without bread can be considered a sandwich, that lifts all stipulations entirely.

Now a sandwich is a dish with any kind of support system. A soup is a sandwich because the broth supports the rest of the soup. A salad is a sandwich because the lettuce supports the other ingredients in the salad. Any food where one primary ingredient supports its fellows is a sandwich, which pertains to nearly all dishes. 

In a lot of ways, we need to learn something from the humble sandwich. Much like how the bread is the support in the sandwich, we need to be the support in our communities. We need to follow this example, and be the support system for each other. Only once our society resembles a sandwich can we reach something great.