But then it gets a bit silly, no? By that definition, a patty melt is a sandwich, but put the same ingredients on two different pieces of bread that happen to be made from a singular piece of bread, it’s a hamburger, which is not a sandwich. It’s just seems silly to me. In both cases, you have something between two pieces of bread. The substance is exactly the same. Or what if, to be silly, I bake what would be the equivalent of bun tops and bun bottoms, so I don’t have to split them. Now all of a sudden it’s a sandwich? Or what if I make a ham and cheese sandwich, but instead of using two slices of bread, I make it out of one slice of bread cut in half? Or what if I just fold it over?
In my use of English (US), a “bun” is a whole item. Like we have “bacon buns” at the bakery here, and it’s a bun with bacon baked inside of it (and quite delicious!)
Anyhow, we have a perfectly extensive thread from seven years ago linked to upthread that hashes all of this out.
Hamburgers are “burgers”. A subclass of “roll”, but their own specific thing - the filling must include a hot patty or flat croquette of some sort. Other hot fillings are “rolls” - hot dogs, chip roll, gatsby, prego steak roll…
I wouldn’t call any burger a roll, any more than I would call it a sandwich.
I guess - at that size, I’d call it a tea sandwich or mutant canape first, though.
I wouldn’t call it either. “Roll” requires a breadroll. “Sandwich” requires bread slices.
I do have to wonder what sandwich Lumpers would make of the bunny chow…
One of the oddest (to me) toppings on a burger, out of all the burgers I’ve ever eaten, is a slice of pickled beet. I was in Sydney, Australia maybe twenty or so years ago. The day after I arrived, I was at the office, and given jet lag and whatall, didn’t feel up to going out to eat when I got back to my hotel. So I ordered room service. The burger and fries looked pretty good on the room service menu, so that, and a couple of beers, is what I ordered.
To my surprise, the burger had, in addition to tomatoes, lettuce, and pickles, a slice of pickled beet (or, as I would later learn to call it, “beetroot”). Figuring what the hell, I took a bite of the burger, beetroot and all. It was surprisingly good! The beetroot added tang, and it complemented everything else. I’ve found beetroot as a burger topping nowhere else, but I kind of wish I could.
Every once in a while on travel.forums an Australian planning to come to.the US will ask for recommendations in wherever they’re planning to go for a restaurant that has hamburgers with beetroot. More than a few have nearly keeled over in horror when the response is " nowhere".
The myth I, and I guess everyone, heard is that Sandwich himself ate those meals at the gambling and/or work table:
But, considering the original idea, it should not only be edible as a finger food using only the hands, one should be able to do so without making a mess (grease everywhere, dripping, bread/pita disintegration, and other sandwich failures).
The particular taxonomy of calling things between a bun or roll a sandwich is not purely an American thing. In Hungary, a szendvics is probably most commonly open-faced, but otherwise can come in forms between bread slices, in a split roll, or in a split bun. Google “sonkas szendvics” for examples of ham sandwiches. It can be hot (as in the bar-room treat melegszendvics, or cold.) Hamburgers are referred to as sandwich. (If you go to BK or McD’s or whatnot and order a burger, they’ll ask you menü vagy csak szendvics, or “meal or just the sandwich”? This is to say that it’s hardly an American phenomenon to refer to these various things as “sandwiches” and if you are going to take a more inclusive view of the word “sandwich” it stands to reason to see what qualifies as such elsewhere. Polish is similar, but it uses the word kanapka from the French, canapé, but otherwise shows all the aforementioned types of sandwiches under that heading.
The above delicious-looking bread bowl concoction with curry has some things in common with what you can find here in the US at old school diners as a hot beef or hot turkey sandwich.
It is sometimes served between two pieces of bread, and sometimes open-faced. I am most used to seeing it as the latter. That is really pushing the definition of sandwich to me, but I understand what I’ll get when I see it on the menu.
Yeah, I’d consider that a sandwich, and wouldn’t be surprised to see slived gyros sitting on the sandwich platter along with little triangles or more traditional sandwiches.
I don’t call anything a “roll” unless it’s a single bready object. It has to be small enough to be no more than one serving, it can’t be too sweet, it can’t be too short, and it can’t already be cut open and have stuff layered inside, or I’d give it some other name. I think o “roll” as a fairly narrow class of foods, not as a large category, like sandwiches are.
