What defines a sandwich? WNYC's 'All Of It' dares to ask.

Legend has it that in mid-18th Century England, the Earl of Sandwich was such a heavy gambler, he didn’t want to leave the card table for meals, so he ordered a servant to bring him some roast beef between two slices of bread.

Thus was born the eponymous sandwich, which would become a culinary icon the world over.

But almost 300 years later, the question of what defines a sandwich continues to flummox chefs, foodies, philosophers and world leaders.

The brave team at WNYC’s 'All Of It' dove headlong into the debate last week by asking: Is a hot dog a sandwich? We’ve selected a few highlights below in the conversation between guest host Kousha Navidar, comedian and writer Josh Gondelman, and our listeners, as food for thought about food thought.

You can listen to the entire conversation here:

The selections below have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Kousha Navidar: First of all, how do you define a sandwich?

Josh Gondelman: You know, the dictionary definition that I looked at is at least two pieces of bread, sandwiching some kind of filling.

And so I think that that is a good starting point for what is technically a sandwich. Although, I think what is spiritually a sandwich can be different, right? Because I think a lobster roll is spiritually a sandwich even when it's in a hotdog bun.

Can you unpack the spiritual part that you're describing? What do you mean by that?

I think there's something to be said for bread or a roll with a filling. You hold it in your hand. You eat it that way. When we're talking about a burrito or a wrap, I think there's another word for that. Once you're squeezing it together, that does have sandwich-like properties.

Hmm. We have a text from a listener: "Under legal/technical definitions, a hotdog could be considered a sandwich, but no normal person would consider it such."

Josh, response?

I do think the legal definition, while it's not invalid, I don't think it gets to the core of this debate, right? Because legally it's a prepared food for purposes of taxation. But I don't think the laws of humankind are the same as the laws of nature and what we're talking about is the nature of a sandwich, right?

It is a philosophical question. And we do have a caller here who my producers are telling us is an expert on this topic. Matt, from Woodstock, what say you?

Matt from Woodstock: A hotdog is absolutely a sandwich, and there's a great deal of confusion around this. There's a few ways we can look at it. We can look at it metaphysically, we can look at it ontologically, but I think sort of the best entry point is to look at it taxonomically. A sandwich is a genus with many different species within it, and I think this is very well in line with the origins of the sandwich. The earl intended to make his meal portable. Bread is a portable, carbohydrate, edible napkin —  insofar as your meal is wrapped in some sort of edible carbohydrate napkin, it is a sandwich.

Matt, thank you so much for that opinion. It sounds like it was earned through a lot of research. Josh, I would like to know, is a carbohydrate napkin what truly makes a sandwich?

Gondelman: That is probably one of the most fascinating definitions of bread that I've ever heard. I would be lying if I said I've never used it that way, but if you were to say, "Define bread to me," I wouldn't say edible carbohydrate napkin, although this is kind of blowing my mind open right now.

I don't think so because to me, a burrito, as we mentioned before, or a chicken caesar wrap there is that edible carbohydrate napkin component in play, but when it's a tortilla as opposed to bread or a sandwich roll, I think that's different. Although I am open to this question of where do we draw the line?

To continue on with this debate, we have another caller.

Julie in Williamsburg: When you have to really get into it, [a hot dog] has to be a sandwich. What's the difference between a hot dog and a bologna sandwich? It's just a different shape.

So then what we were talking about with a wrap and a burrito … it's a sandwich genre. It has a relationship to a sandwich, but the hot dog is the closest in relation, if not the same as a sandwich. It is a sibling, not a cousin.

Gondelman: I think that if we want to say "sandwich" is a genre, that is wider open than maybe I'd been considering. Again, I think that's a fair argument. What's the difference? What's the difference between a square and a triangle, except for the shape? It's like, yeah, the shape is kind of the thing.

I think common usage would not envelop all these different food stuffs under that definition, except for legally. I do not bow to the law of Andrew Cuomo when I'm thinking about philosophy.

Josh, I'm so happy that you brought up legality because our team has been trying to get a response from the government about this question, and we reached out to the New York State Tax Department and their spokesperson, Ryan Cleveland, just got back to us with this. It reads:

We get this inquiry fairly often. The key question is not whether it’s a sandwich or not. It’s whether it’s prepared food or not.

In this regard, you can buy a dozen bagels and not incur tax. But if you buy a bagel that has been sliced and toasted and has toppings, it is taxed because it has been prepared for you. In other words, a service has been provided and the service is taxable.

When it comes to hot dogs, the same rules apply. You can buy a package of hot dogs and not be taxed, but if you buy one that has been cooked, placed in a bun with toppings applied – it’s prepared food and it is taxable.

These rules regarding prepared food items have been in place unchanged since the early 1960s when state sales tax was first implemented.

Josh, do you have any response to that?

Gondelman: I mean, that feels incredibly fair, but I don't think it gets to the heart of this debate that we're having, like what's eliciting this passion from our listeners, but I do think it is a good starting point.

I'm glad to know the parameters of this legal definition. It is good to know that, from a legal standpoint, we have these specific regulations and parameters in place, and it is good to know that there are top minds thinking about this.

Let's go to caller Jeremy in Brooklyn. Hi Jeremy.

Jeremy in Brooklyn: Uh, yeah, I just want to problematize this thought that you need two or more slices of bread because what about open-face sandwiches? And if those are in, then what about pizza?

Jeremy, what do you think about it?

Jeremy: I think open-face sandwich: clearly a sandwich. Uh, I think pizza: clearly not a sandwich. But I don't know why.

Gondelman: I still think that an open-face sandwich almost always implies two or more slices of bread. I would call it like a crostini or something on a single slice, not two. So I do think each half is half of an open-face sandwich.

We talk about pizza, right? The line has to be drawn somewhere. Is a layer cake a sandwich? No, certainly not. Is a calzone a pillow? Like, who knows? I say no.

Is John Travolta eating a sandwich in the opening scene of 'Stayin' Alive' when he piles one pizza slice on top of another? Where do we draw the line?

Josh, we are getting a lot of text messages with opinions. I'd love to just read some and get your reaction.

Texter: "Portable" is key to the sandwich category: burritos, hot dogs, all sandwiches, yes. But a taco is not a sandwich. What about a bagel and schmear? Is that a sandwich?

Another texter: The “anything with a carbohydrate napkin” argument falls apart fast because that would need to include Jamaican patties, empanadas and dumplings.

Josh what say you?

So I do think there is a level in a dumpling of any culture of maybe a greasiness that is permissible. That makes the carbohydrate not a napkin, right? Like you could kind of dab with hotdog bread if there was mustard on your finger. I feel like if you dragged something like a pierogi across your hand, you're getting a little snail trail of pierogi. But I do love this line of thinking because I think a dumpling definitely is a different genre than a sandwich. And burrito to me is right on the line. Is it a dumpling or is it a sandwich? Is it just based on how firmly it's sealed shut? I don't know. These are the questions that Plato, Socrates, uh, Sontag, the great thinkers of our time and previous times have been grappling with for centuries, millennia.

We've just had some more data come in. We asked some of our folks on Instagram — we put out a poll today in a story and we asked: Is a hotdog a sandwich? The results: 73% say it is not a sandwich.

Josh?

Wow. Fascinating. I think there is an element of consensus, although to me this is almost the inverse argument of “Is it art,” right? The idea of looking at a work of art, an element of culture and saying, “Is this art?” ... and definitionally the answer is almost always yes. It's almost always art by definition, even though it might not serve the function of art.

However, with a hotdog, I think we have the inverse, right? Even though definitionally, we say two pieces of bread, filling in between is the dictionary definition of sandwich and hotdog does not satisfy that. But it does functionally satisfy what you do with a sandwich: It's portable, it's edible. Those are two big ones. It's got at least one open seam, which is different than a dumpling.

It sounds like you're going back to that idea of what's the spirit of the hotdog? Let's go to Brant on line 2.

Brant: As much as you want to discuss the intricacies of the definition of a sandwich, if you were telling your friend a story and you said, “I had a sandwich for lunch,” and then later they found out it was a hot dog, they would think that you were either lying or insane. Because no one pictures a hot dog when they hear the word sandwich. So, regardless of whether or not it falls into some sort of sandwich definition, I believe it to be irrelevant.

What I hear Brant doing here is taking us a step back, maybe going along with that spirit part of the conversation and saying, what are we actually trying to accomplish, Josh?

I think it's a good point to consider, although I would consider a hamburger a sandwich. It unquestionably satisfies all the elements of a sandwich. And similarly, if you said, “I had a sandwich for lunch,” and the person you're speaking to closed their eyes and pictured what you ate, they certainly wouldn't picture a hamburger.

It speaks to the cultural biases of the listener, right? It depends on what their prior experience of the sandwich is and what they consider a sandwich, right? So I think we've got the 73% of listeners who say a hotdog is not a sandwich, We've got 27% that — maybe you close your eyes, you picture a table full of sandwiches and maybe there's a club sandwich there, maybe there is a hotdog there. I don't think it is fair to eliminate a hotdog from the definition of sandwich because it is not the primary sandwich that you imagine someone else imagining when they see a sandwich. If I say I was in a building and you don't picture a skyscraper, you picture a brownstone, you picture a yurt, right? I think that is what you're coming into this with.

Before you judge, walk a mile in someone else's hotdog cart.

Yeah, walk a mile in my bun.

Josh, as we wrap up here, what do you think is the ideal vision of settling this debate? When will we know that we've reached either consensus or what the true meaning of a hotdog is?

You know, coming from the Jewish faith, I think that the debate, the active engagement with philosophy, is one of the more important qualities. So I don't think we need to come down on one side or another. I think this is — pun heavily intended — something we can continue to chew over long into the future.