Food, I agree. Most of that processed deli meat in not healthful.

Sometimes I eat King Oscar double pack sardines on cracker — poor man’s sushi.

Have you been sailing? Today would be a decent day.

We’re behind schedule. Splash on Saturday, iffy forecast so not sure if we’ll get sails on or if we’ll just power home for now.

Saturday — rain in New England. Rainy May. I hope you get out soon. Heaven.

I love sandwiches. Here's a good change up from regular tuna salad that I had in my newspaper food column recently.

Italian Tuna Salad

Two cans tuna, drained

1/4 to half cup of sun-dried tomatoes

1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup of prepared or homemade basil pesto

2 or more tablespoons of homemade mayo

Salt and pepper to taste

Add ingredients to a bowl and stir well.

This recipe is very forgiving. Use as much or little of the ingredients until it tastes good to you. I have added Kalamata olives and that was delicious.

" Elmer - I didn’t need an expert to tell me I like air in my sandwiches, "

Well here's the thing - the notion triggered a written piece from a company whose videos, recipes and TV shows about food and equipment are very well respected. And followed regularly and well respected by people with food and cooking hobbies. And also a comment on a video from a guy who I think is currently the most popular recipe and cookbook developer in the US. I thought it was an interesting suggestion, and I decided to share it. Others here seem to have liked it if you didn't.

If you don't like it, fine. If you want to sit on your sandwiches before eating them, that's okay with me too. Do so tomorrow, take a photo, and share it here.

I think there's a misunderstanding here. I think what FOAS was saying was that he'd long ago discovered the effectiveness of the air without expert help. That is, he was agreeing with you from a different source.

Wow. Ok, yeah, I was agreeing. Not sure why I’d sit on a sandwich after going out of my way to make it airy.

There’s interesting science behind why the sky looks blue. I don’t remember the details, but I always remember it being blue!

@petalique - Here’s what ”sailing” looks like today.

" Ok, yeah, I was agreeing. "

Sorry if I misunderstood. Where I come from, to say " I didn’t need XX to tell me YY" is dismissive and derisive.

I can see it both ways (speaking generally).

Warning: my brain can have difficulty with 3-D imagery, with double negatives and with what I’ll call convoluted language or wording.

Having said that, I can see both sides and also the possibility for a vague passive-aggressive slant.

One could exclaim, ”Siskal and Ebert didn’t need to spend 30 minutes telling me what a genius Shakespeare was! I am another devotee!”

Or, for a snippy tone, ”Patty doesn’t need to spend time explaining how to turn off the hot water! She’s so bossy and condescending.”

Or, ”It is so kind of you to compliment me on my intelligence.”

Do quesadillas count in the sandwich catagory? I'm making chorizo ones tonight, mmmmm.

I vote yes.

If it is to you, then it is.

But I believe the definition of a sandwich describes a food item made with bread, either one or two sliced pieces, or a sliced roll.

If a quesadilla is a sandwich, how about an enchilada? A burrito? I say No to those too

My favorite sandwich is sharp cheddar cheese and raw mild onion. A bit of mustard if I'm feeling fancy. (I like the mustard with whole mustard seeds in it.) On any kind of bread.

I learned this sandwich from my dad who probably learned it from his dad. I thought it was a family thing, but recently a Russian friend told me it was his favorite. So maybe it's an ethnic thing.

I would put quesadillas in the sandwich category. A ”torta” might be a closer fit in Mexico. I often make (and order) a quesadilla for lunch instead of a sandwich. Same with a panini…yes, with bread but also heated/grilled.

Regarding sandwiches, I bought this book years ago when the cover caught my attention on the shelf at Crown Books. It was a good find. There’s a nice chapter on Sandwiches.

If it's a relative of a sandwich, even like a second cousin twice removed, and it's delicious, bring it on. Especially with descriptions, pictures, and recipes. We don't have to guard the purity of our sandwich thread. From the OP, Petalique: What quick, fast, yummy sandwiches or grab & go food works for you?

Put some chix meat on a burrito wrapper...

I wouldn’t eat a relative . . . although, Donner Party . . . second cousin twice removed . . . and “delicious” you say? Hmm.

Oh, I am embarrassed. Some quick reading suggests that even the Donner party kept track of whose body the meat came from, so that no-one (knowingly) ate their relative. Okay, no second-cousin-twice-removed sandwich, even in extremis.

A relative of a sandwich, silly!

Not a sandwich of a relative! I must pay more attention to word order!

Rotfl!

If you think ”bread” when faced with a tortilla (I do) then tacos and quesadillas are sandwiches. Fold over a slice of bread (I do) to hold the filling. Fold over a tortilla, same diff. Or lavash, pita, injera, whatever. Burritos, by what's in them, the real kind, not those gigantic restaurant ones, while father removed from risen bread by shape, are conceptually sandwiches. Quesadillas at first thought seem a bit different to me — but so do grilled cheese sandwiches! I think because they need plates, and to be couth, forks. But really, greasy fried cheese sandwiches are a niche section, but still really sandwiches.

No bread to be seen in these classic summer sandwiches!

^^^ Ha! Are you a creative tax cheat?

Maybe Sichuan dumplings and ravioli are sandwiches. Make room for mu shu pork

And Peking duck.

And we could even include gravy 🔬

Yes-ish on the mu shu, at least American Chinese Restaurant version that are like tortillas. Many people, however, use the wrapper more as a push around kind of thing, more like a bread stick And when I was really young the wrappers were egg..

You could make a convincing argument that stuffed pasta/skins are are dumplings, but not sandwiches because the wrappers are more pasta than flatbreads, wet and not baked/toasted. "Toasted ravioli" are stuffed first. The pasta itself isn't cooked before adding the filling. And dumplings are their own thing. Speatzle are dumplings. Matzabasll are dumplings. Hush puppies are sometimes called dumplings, sometimes fritters, and occasionally half and half. Lots of dumplings are fried rather than boiled, however, so dumpling works...

Thinking back to when the Earl created the thing, his namesake is fundamentally food between bread, quickly prepared by a manservant, eaten whilst being held in one hand, the other being used to play cards.

If the thing requires two hands, utensils, or leaves the hand too messy for cardplay, then a sandwich it cannot be. If the thing is not in some way food between, among, or in a bread or bread-adjacent upper, lower, or outer, ditto. If the thing is not quickly prepared, the card game is already over so ditto again. If the preparer is not a manservant, well we must make allowances for modern times.

A hamburger is a sandwich, a sloppy joe is not (“utensil“, ”messy”). A taco could be a sandwich, a tamale cannot (“bread”). A corndog might barely be a sandwich, a steamed bun seems unlikely (“quickly” - although maybe someone can whip up bao in a few minutes?). A Cornish pastie is a sandwich, a sushi roll is not (“bread”).

I, if not the Earl, also believe the truest sandwich is a no-cooking food. While the filling may be cooked, it will have been cooked ahead, and the making of the sandwich itself is more assembly than cooking. The sandwich should be the most accessible of prepared foods, as capable of being whipped up by a backpacker assembling his jambon fromage baguette on the banks of the Seine as by the small child alone in the home with no adults to do any cooking.

That is too puritanical! scold the lovers of grilled cheese sandwiches, panini, baked meatball sandwiches, soup dumplings and pain au chocolat.

Maybe, but Lines Must Be Drawn.

Why do I have such opinions about a food that, as explained earlier, I don’t even make much? I guess just memories of being that backpacker and that small child, both hungry and both unable to cook. The sandwich cannot fill its responsibilities to us, if burners and ovens are required to make it.

“Maybe, but Lines Must Be Drawn.”

I tend to agree but I’m not sure we could ever come to agreement on what that line is. I don’t mind something called a sandwich, perhaps whimsically, because it’s something between two somethings. Like the ice cream sandwiches above or Oreo sandwich cookies. On the other hand, if you offer me a sandwich for lunch I’d be taken aback if that’s what you gave me. Likewise if it were a taco or papusa. I see zero reason to categorize these as sandwiches, or even a subset of sandwich.

If you put some cheese between two slices of bread, we’d probably agree that it’s a cheese sandwich. Grill it, and it suddenly loses its sandwichness? A cheese sandwich, grilled, is not a grilled cheese sandwich? A ”grilled” ”cheese sandwich”?

We were asked if quesadillas count as sandwiches. Some felt yes, some felt no. I won’t judge either way, but do appreciate asking the question along with the submission. The awareness of stretching the definition.

I'm on board with the ice cream sandwich. I loved those things as a kid. Can't remember the last time I had one though. Maybe this summer will see a box of them show up in the freezer :)

Nice sloop, Food. I hope you can get out soon.

Is a hotdog a sandwich?

Maybe if held sideways.

From John Liu’s post, a lot of ”sandwiches” will not meet the definition. No Dagwoods. I couldn’t eat a lobster roll or any hotdog roll ”sandwich” with one hand and not make a mess or lose the filling. On cold, rainy days, a grilled hotdog roll filled with tuna salad along with a bowl or cup of tomato soup really hits the spot.

The sun came out for an hour or two. I saw some blue sky. Now it looks as though the cloudy, unstable weathern might be returning. The summer of the soggy sneakers.

For me, tortilla is a normal sandwich bread—my state used to be part of Mexico and a couple centuries later still has a cultural foot there—but huge rolls that you can't get in your mouth aren't. Not normal. But clearly sandwiches. Extension: At a stand near a pier in Greece, yea many years ago, I was served a 10” pointy baguette kind of loaf, one pointy side slit open and held pointing up, then stuffed with chicken, vegetables, sauce, french fries and pickles. IIRC. There was a lot in there. The contents of a whole plated meal. The bread was pliably soft, but sturdy enough not to drip. Not too much crumb inside, so room for it all. It was really good! And far more abnormal, as sandwiches go, than a taco!

Eatable with one non-messy hand is what separates a sandwich from a Beef Wellington!

Has to be “one hand”. You can eat almost anything sans utensils if you use both hands and have all your teeth. Ask a zombie.

“Non-messy” will garner protests from lovers of sloppy joes and similar runny pseudo-sandwiches. But if you permit the one hand to be messy, then spaghetti and meatballs is a sandwich, as is clam chowder soup, such is the versatility of the human hand.

Even the one-armed zombies get their calories.

I imagine much of the line-drawing and erasing has to do with “bread or bread-like”. If a taco is a sandwich, why not a tamale or a lo mai gai, a spring roll or a lettuce wrap? Or for that matter FOAS’ ice cream “sandwich” or even a box-stock OEM Oreo? Is a banh mi a sandwich?

Boy, food is fun! Humans have poured sweat and soul and sublime creativity into food, and made it one of our species’ greatest accomplishments. Along with the Jaguar E-Type.

I dunno about taking the Earls sandwich as the sandwich standard. No rou jia mo because it existed before the Earl and so it don't count? Hillel the Elders Passover snack don't count? The cultures of flatbread instead of loaves don't count? The regular meal amongst the commoners of meat and/or cheese in bread don't count because they were doing it before the Earl got inspired and made it popular in the wealthy? Nah, those count. Sandwich is just the Kleenex of his day and the name stuck.

Though if we do go with the Earls standard. Only roasted or salt beef, no other fillings. Maybe a touch of butter, but no other condiments. Bread might be untoasted, but more common would be toasted. And toasted not grilled- grilled came around way later.

Food is indeed fun. And we all do enjoy a good food debate too.

Food fight next week?

LOL!

But I'll say, a sandwich is the last thing I'd want to eat while working at a computer. I need two hands to type, I'd be scared of crumbles in the keyboard, I like to drink water with my lunch, again, requiring hands and/or plates and glasses, and I usually use two hands to hold a sandwich as well. I don't have big man hands, but I can type.

Beesneeds said it much better than I would. The Earl's gambling habits and susequent fad are only a subset, as are tacos, of what are termed ”sandwiches” in English, but are by no means an item localized to our culture. A tamal is much more like a dumpling than a sandwich. Spring rolls and lettuce don't have the bread. Ice cream sandwich is made using the sandwich process but uses cookies rather than bread. Therefore it must have the qualifier ”ice cream” to use the word ”sandwich”, because it's not really a sandwich, pe se, but mimics one. I would not like ice cream between two slices of sourdough toast.

“Therefore it must have the qualifier ”ice cream” to use the word ”sandwich”, because it's not really a sandwich, pe se, but mimics one.”

Is a roast beef sandwich a sandwich? There being s qualifier and all?

Yes. ”Roast Beef” merely adds information. If you dig into your lunch cooler bag and say, ”Here! Have a sandwich,” to your friend, when he unwraps it and sees a roast beef sandwich, he is not shocked, and is wondering horseradish or mustard, rather than whether it is the sandwich he was offered. If you had handed him an ice cream sandwich, he'd be thinking, ”Where's the beef?” and maybe where you get your cooler bricks, not, ”Do you have any mayo?” If he offers you an ice cream sandwich, you know you're getting a cold dessert, not some kind of bread with meat (protein), maybe cheese, and/or some kind of vegetables, or plant-based goo like PBJ. PBJ is a sandwich rather than a dessert by way of the bread.

Ohhhh, food fight. Will there be pies? Whoopie pies? Pies that are chocolate cookie sandwiches with cream filling but isn't called a cookie sandwich? Hehehehe.

plllog - Sure, I’ll accept that! Though I’d still circle back and say a taco would be met with similar, if milder, surprise. 🙂

“I'm on board with the ice cream sandwich.”

Some years ago I started making them myself mostly for summer gatherings. I’d pretty much make chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies for them. They can be made well in advance and parked in the freezer. I can honestly say they’ve always been one of the bigger dessert hits with both kids and adults.👍🏻

FOAS, I get that. But tacos aren't called "sandwiches". But, at least around here, one and another might agree to have sandwiches for lunch and end up eating tacos without thinking it's a change of plan.

Sandwiches at 25 paces!

As projectiles, distance weapons, the wrapped sandwiches will clearly be more effective. I bet plllog could throw a tight spiral with a burrito.

The layered sandwiches, being unaerodynamic and prone to fragment in flight, seem better as up close ambush implements. Maybe the flat sticky ones, PBJs and grilled cheese, could be released like frisbees.

At close enough range, knuckle sandwiches would be most effective.

Pinwheels

Rotisserie chicken leftovers, shredded, spicy barbecue sauce, with miracle whip to offset the spiciness, on brioche sliders. I'm sure many people would add pickles. Not my favorite, but that would probably be perfection for most people.

Not all sandwiches need air, and quesadillas especially do not have air in them, and I eat those more often than sandwiches. I prefer dense sandwiches to ones that are air filled, and I do vacuum seal certain sandwiches to get rid of air.

I also often heat sandwiches and also often press them when heating them, and thus remove air from them. I do this when I make Reuben sandwiches, and I make my own sauerkraut for these. I also make my own mustard, for that matter.

Deviled ham, egg salad, and tuna salad sandwiches also have very little air in them, especially if you do not add lettuce. I generally make quesadillas with these fillings instead of sandwiches, and of course I heat the tortillas on a comal to make them.

One trick I learned from Ina Garten was to add hummus to the torilla when making tuna salad quesadillas (or wraps). You can also use pita bread. I have to travel a bit further in Coachella Valley to find lavash than I did in L.A., but Gelson's in Rancho Mirage generally has it, but I can find freshly made house tortillas at Cárdenas in three or four sizes and often substitute those for lavash. I've made lavash myself, but I've also made tortillas, although it is cheaper and easier to buy them here.

Another sort of sandwich that I like to make is Calzone, and it is great for picnics, especially if there are a lot of people:

I often fill this with mostly cold cuts - Mortadella, ham, salami, Provolone, etc and maybe just a small amount of pasta sauce.

I finally took a minute to read Elmer’s link to the ATK article on air. And I finally get why I prefer grilled cheese sandwiches done on the stove than when DH makes them in the George Foreman: air. The Foreman is practically a panini press, and squeezes all the air out of the sandwich.

And also why I always seed the tomatos for slices on sandwiches. I usually do that anyway for salad or such, but especially for sandwiches.

And maybe it’s why Swiss cheese is just so good on a ham sandwich. Ham thin-sliced and loosely crumpled, of course.

I do love that Chicago creation, the Italian beef sandwich. But I’ll take it on a plate, thank you, with a knife and fork and plenty of napkins.

Ice cream sandwich. Now that’s a sandwich.

Valid point about paninis and other hot sandwiches. For me the main thing is I don’t want a thick bite of cold cuts. whether stacked flat or worse, thickly sliced. Crumpling it to create air works in a cold sandwich, and in a cheesy panini I’d be layering ingredients to separate the (hopefully) thinner slices of meat.

Here’s a guide we have hanging on the deli case. I’d always want in the thin/very thin range. Though if I’m putting out a cold cut platter I’d go a little thicker or else people would make a mess of it.

" Here’s a guide we have hanging on the deli case. "

Where do you keep your deli case? Do you own a store?

Yes.