This and only this is a sandwich

In today’s post on “What is barbecue?” I skipped past “is a hot dog a sandwich?” so quickly that I forgot to answer the question. So in the same spirit in which someone can boldly declare that only smoked, slow-cooked pork is barbecue, here is my minimal definition of a sandwich:

A sandwich is any solid or semi-solid filling between two or more slices of bread. Not a roll, not a wrap, not a leaf of lettuce: sliced bread. What is inside far less than the container.

Consequently:

• A hot dog is not a sandwich.
• A burrito is not a sandwich.
• A wrap is not a sandwich.
• A cheeseburger on a roll is not a sandwich. Sliced bread only.
• A lobster roll is not a sandwich.
• A hoagie is not a sandwich.
• An ice cream sandwich is not a sandwich.
• A hot turkey sandwich is not a sandwich.
• An open-faced sandwich is not a sandwich.
• If you make a sandwich using one end of the bread and one proper slice, it’s kind of a sandwich still, but not really. See also folding over a single slice of bread for a half-sandwich.
• If you make a sandwich using both ends of the bread, it is no longer a sandwich at all.
• A peanut butter or grilled cheese sandwich is a sandwich.
• A mayonnaise, butter, or ketchup sandwich is probably a sandwich — I’m not sure whether those fillings are solid enough — just not a very good one.
• A sandwich made with crackers instead of bread is not a sandwich, but an imitation of a sandwich.
• A sandwich made with crackers between two slices of bread is a sandwich, but not a very good one.

Alternatively, “sandwich” is a family-resemblance concept and we can’t appeal to definitional consistency to get away from the fact that language is a complex organism and its rules don’t always make perfect sense.

(PS: I do not speak for Jason or Kottke.org on this matter, please do not argue with him about sandwiches)

Update (from Jason): Boy, you leave Tim to his own devices for a few hours and he establishes the official kottke.org stance on sandwiches. [That new emoji of the yellow smiley face grabbing its chin and looking skeptical that you might not have on Android IDK I’m Apple Man] I was just talking to my kids the other day about this important issue and Ollie, who is almost 9, told me that both hamburgers and hot dogs are sandwiches because “the meat is sandwiched in between the bread; it’s right there in the word”. When Ollie and Minna take over the family business in 2027, they can revisit this, but for now, Tim’s definition stands.

Update: Tim’s definition has been weakened further. In talking with Stephen Colbert, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg asserted that a hot dog is a sandwich.

• food
• language
• Ruth Bader Ginsberg
• sandwiches

Old masters

The NY Times interviewed several people in their 80s who are still killing it in their careers and creative pursuits. Says Ruth Bader Ginsberg about surprises about turning 80:

Nothing surprised me. But I’ve learned two things. One is to seek ever more the joys of being alive, because who knows how much longer I will be living? At my age, one must take things day by day. I have been asked again and again, “How long are you going to stay there?” I make that decision year by year. The minute I sense I am beginning to slip, I will go. There’s a sense that time is precious and you should enjoy and thrive in what you’re doing to the hilt. I appreciate that I have had as long as I have… It’s a sense reminiscent of the poem “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” I had some trying times when my husband died. We’d been married for 56 years and knew each other for 60. Now, four years later, I’m doing what I think he would have wanted me to do.

The interviews are accompanied by an essay by Lewis Lapham, himself on the cusp of 80.

John D. Rockefeller in his 80s was known to his business associates as a crazy old man possessed by the stubborn and ferocious will to know why the world wags and what wags it, less interested in money than in the solving of a problem in geography or corporate combination. By sources reliably informed I’m told that Warren Buffett, 84, and Rupert Murdoch, 83, never quit asking questions.

I read a book several years ago which is relevant here called Old Masters and Young Geniuses, in which economist David Galenson divided creative people into two main camps: conceptual and experimental innovators:

1) The conceptual innovators who peak creatively early in life. They have firm ideas about what they want to accomplish and then do so, with certainty. Pablo Picasso is the archetype here; others include T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Orson Wells. Picasso said, “I don’t seek, I find.”

2) The experimental innovators who peak later in life. They create through the painstaking process of doing, making incremental improvements to their art until they’re capable of real masterpiece. Cezanne is Galenson’s main example of an experimental innovator; others include Frank Lloyd Wright, Mark Twain, and Jackson Pollock. Cezanne remarked, “I seek in painting.”

• books
• David Galenson
• interviews
• Lewis Lapham
• Old Masters and Young Geniuses
• Ruth Bader Ginsberg
• working