Twitter Went Into A Tizzy After Duff Goldman Declared This Surprising Food To Be A Sandwich
No one really asked. But Duff Goldman answered regardless. "Tacos are sandwiches," he wrote on Twitter in response to the question "Is a pizza a sandwich? Like, an open-faced sandwich?"
This exchange comes fresh off the heels of Goldman's proclamation that donuts do not need to have holes to be donuts, citing Boston Cream donuts, jelly donuts, and churros as examples to prove his point. Moreover, it comes during the slow summer weeks when people seem intent on finding out what foods are defined as what. Recently, the Flavortown Twitter account endorsed the view that all foods were either a salad, soup, or sandwich.
However, not everyone was on board with Goldman's inclusion of tacos as sandwiches. "Tacos are absolutely not," one argued. "Sandwiches are based on bread thickness and structure. eg a crepe is not a sandwich, but a pita is." There is some logic to this, but then it pushed others to bring up the eternal quandary of whether or not hot dogs counted as sandwiches. Another countered that "sandwich literally means to insert something between two things, even if those two things are opposing surfaces of one thing." In that case, tacos do indeed count as sandwiches.
Counterpoint: a sandwich is a sandwich
While inventing food taxonomies is fun, another type of answer begins with the point that a sandwich is a sandwich and goes from there.
This point is best illustrated by a panel from Existential Comics in which philosophers argue whether a hot dog is a sandwich. Like a Twitter comment section, they raise various points about the hot dog. It begins with asking if the food has bread on both sides and food in the middle, and arrives at the idea that a sandwich is an umbrella term with various subclasses, like wraps and subs.
All this is refuted, however, when Wittgenstein stomps in and asks Austin to hand him the sandwich. Austin stands confused and inquires whether Wittgenstein meant the hot dog. The point is that even though hot dogs and sandwiches share physical characteristics, only a very determined person would insist on saying sandwich when asking for a hot dog or taco. In other words, a sandwich is what society recognizes as a sandwich in day-to-day conversation, not some technicality.