What is the most important ingredient in a sandwhich?

Somehow this thread made me think that LE forums have finally come of age.

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What about paninis or melts? What about the toasted hoagie? I disagree, toast by itself cannot be a sandwich, though a sandwich can be toasted.

I fully respect your disagreement.

how about this oneā€¦dough cannot be a sandwich right? its a base ingredient for bread (which can be a sandwich) but in order to make bread you have to use the ingredient and turn it into a different substance.
So if dough is a base ingredient of bread then bread must be a base ingredient of toast and cant be a sandwich.

Butā€¦perhaps a toasted sandwich is, in fact, a different category (or subcategory if you prefer) of sandwich. That would then allow you to have different ā€œimportant ingredientsā€ for both a natural sandwich and a toasted sandwich.

Iā€™m quite partial to a cheese and ham toasted sandwich, which you could also have in its uncooked, natural sandwich state which is also quite pleasant.

Which is indeed correct, iā€™m glad you caught on. I am not sure what would be the defining ingredient of a toasted sandwich though.

Edit: I think it would be the enhancer ingredient, such as sauerkraut, onion, etc. Such an ingredient would need to have a bold flavor cold as an after-topping or have its flavor brought out through heat in the toasting process.

Wow!
You guys really have in depth knowledge of sandwiches that can be eaten!

When I first read the topic I thought about a sex thingā€¦ Am I the only one? :slight_smile::kissing_closed_eyes:

The spread.

A slice of bread is not a sandwich; nor is a filling. It is the spread which unites the two, and enables those individual components to form something greater than the sum of its parts.

a good point @Sarno but what is your view on the toast v bread point?

Well, having had a bit of thought about this, there are many illogical contraditions in the English language (as I implied above), however apparently you need some of them laid out for you:
There is no ham in hamburger.
Neither is there any apple nor pine in pineapple.
There is no egg in eggplant (though itā€™s aubergine, not eggplant).
If teachers taught, why didnā€™t preachers praught?
ā€œOverlookā€ and ā€œoverseeā€ have opposite meanings, while ā€œlookā€ and ā€œseeā€ mean the same thing.
A wise man is the opposite of a wise guy.
An alarm goes off when itā€™s on.
Boxing rings are square.
Sweetbreads.

Therefore I would posit that itā€™s entirely logical (or at least consistent) to call a toasted sandwich a toasted sandwich.

But consider this:

If you have 10 ingredients, and one is bread, you can stack 9 of those non-bread ingredients together and it will not be a sandwich. Essentially, you can stack numerous things on top of each other, but as soon as you add bread to each side, it becomes a sandwich. Or, if you start with bread, adding anything makes it a sandwich. This is a trait unique to bread.

Yeah, I was just talking about whether or not a toasted sandwich is a type of sandwich or not. Thereā€™s plenty of incosistencies in the English language to allow for a toasted sandwich being a sandwich (despite the obvious that toasting bread makes it toast, not bread).

Toast is just crunchy bread, like how fried chicken is still chicken

But we donā€™t have a different word for fried chicken.

lets just take a moment to appreciate that a topic about sandwiches and bread is now the third most replied to subject on the off topic forumā€¦weā€™ve come a long way ladies and gentlemen.

You have to agree that for bread to become toast it has to undergo a fundamental change to its structure, bread cannot be bread and toast at the same time - its one or the other right?

Following the same thought a sandwich and a toasted sandwich still cannot be the one and same thing, at what point does a sandwich become a toasted sandwichā€¦

are we now getting into the realms of Shrodingers Bread? At what point does bread become toast?

When itā€™s been toasted, clearly.

Iā€™m not saying that toast = bread, Iā€™m just saying that a toasted sandwich can be called a sandwich because English. I would refer you to the small list I posted above.

Wow, really? Iā€™m glad I could help lol. Also, a sandwich that has been toasted is a toasted sandwich, just as bread that has been toasted is toast.

All sandwiches need cheese.

even Paddington Bearā€™s favourite, Marmalade? not sure a cheese and marmalade sandwich would be a winner

Funnily enough, when I was a kid, I used to have strawberry jam & double gloucester cheese sandwichesā€¦ Though strawberry jam & banana were nicer.

Strontium 90? Am I getting any closer?

Sharp cheddar and orange marmalade go really well together!