What is a Sandwich?

An ongoing dialogue

Recipes live alongside essays, kitchen studies and the kinds of things you think about while butter melts in a pan.

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Five or so years ago, on a visit to California to visit my brother Santi, I sat down for lunch at Zuni Cafe unaware of the philsophical journey I was headed for. Our friend Will joined us. A table for three and a roast chicken to share. “Roast Chicken with Warm Bread Salad” is precisely what the menu read. And that’s exactly what arrived! Which is why I began to lose it when Santi called the dish a sandwich.

I had already spent 8 hours prior in the car with him, 4 of which were spent without cell service driving through Big Sur. Which is not a bad place to lose service at all. But we were hungry, sleep deprived, and the only music we had downloaded was Billie Eilish’s Happier Than Ever album.

Santi’s sandwich at Zuni Cafe, August 2021

“This sandwich is so good,” Santi said calmly at our table. Will began to grin. I warned him not to engage. It was too late. “The sandwich is excellent,” he said to the waiter. The waiter let out a nervous laugh.

It turns out Santi’s fork had caught a piece of bread, had skewered through some chicken, a salad leaf and was then topped off with more bread. This, he claims, is a sandwich.

Santi owns up to his definition. His skewer that day was a sandwich, he thinks a cheeseburger is a sandwich, an Oreo is a sandwich. An oyster however, because its shells are hinged and not parallel to eachother, is not a sandwich. He follows through and is consistent.

Our waiter gave Santi crayons

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Opposite to Santi’s school of thought, I’ve adopted a more Aristotelian approach to sandwich. For me, sandwich is, put simply, that which has sandwichness.

Take soup, for example. You could define soup as broadly as “liquid in a bowl,” but pour that same liquid in a cup and your definition begins to crumble. Either you assume the consequences and admit this is no longer a soup (ridiculous), or you alter the definition until you are consistent (polite).

Picture a cream of mushroom soup. Surely this is “liquid in a bowl” — a soup. Remove the mushrooms entirely, swap the salt and spices for cinnamon sugar. Take the cream and switch it out for milk. We are just toying with the recipe after all. Harmlessly substituting ingredients. Those garlicky croutons? They’ve turned into frosted mini wheats. You now have a bowl of cereal — please don’t call this soup.

If, however, we define soup as that which has soupness, then soup is unbreakable. Soup can be in a cup, it can be cold, drunk from a straw, frozen and not be called a popsicle. A popsicle is a popsicle and soup is soup.

So what has sandwichness? Those subtances which possess essence of sandwich. But we musn’t randomly define essence of sandwich. To fully understand sandwich, we need to know certain aspects of sandwich — its four causes.

The Four Causes (loosely)

• Material Cause: The physical stuff it is made of

  Bread and various fillings such as but not limited to: turkey, cheese, lettuce, peanut butter & jelly

• Formal Cause: The form or structural design

  A piece of bread, one or more fillings, another piece of bread on top

• Efficient Cause: The craftsperson who makes it

  A cook, chef or an ordinary person, sometimes a machine

• Final Cause: The purpose or reason it exists

  Portable, utensil-free, convenient, to be eaten

So even if an Oreo cookie is sandwiching the creme filling, even if we commonly call it a cookie sandwich, this is not a sandwich. It is a cookie.

None of this should lead you to conclude that sandwich is in the eye of the beholder. Sandwich is not subjective, and the fact that we can’t agree on sandwich doesn’t mean sandwich doesn’t exist. I’ve made peace knowing I may never reach true sandwich. But sandwich is out there and is worth seeking. It’s the pursuit that makes life worth living.

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