I’m willing to accept a sandwich cut in half when it’s presented on a plate and each half can be handled as a discrete unit but if I already have a plate, I’m usually not in the mood for a sandwich. Sandwiches are portable food, meant to be eaten on the go and I virulently despise portable sandwiches that are cut in half.
The worst is when you reach that last nub of the first sandwich half that juts up against the second half and the friction from the cutting produces a shower of debris and gobs of sauce that fly everywhere once unconstrained.
Walkin around sandwiches should be eaten like a burrito, the outer wrapping provides the structural integrity and pieces are peeled back layer by layer to expose fresh sandwich for consumption. Nobody ever cuts a freaking hotdog in half because we all understand that hotdogs are portable food and the structure supports that purpose.
But if you do cut a sandwich in half, diagonal is infinitely superior to the infantile half rectangles. Diagonal gives you three possible choices by which to attack the sandwich: 45 degrees, 90 degrees and 180 degrees. Rectangular only gives you the impoverished choice of two: 90 degrees or 180 degrees.
I cut in half diagonally. It’s just slightly more aesthetically pleasing on the plate and I find that if my healthy lunch is visually appealing, I’m less cranky about the fact I’m not stuffing my face with fatty carby tasty food.
When my kids were little, I used to cut all of their sandwiches into halves or quarters, just to make things a bit easier/neater. I didn’t realize that I’d imported this into my own life.
The first time my gf, me, and my adult kids all went out to eat together my gf cracked up. She had noticed, but never mentioned, that I would cut sandwhiches, even burgers, into smaller pieces. Seeing me, my son, and daughter all doing this was apparently very funny.
Typically I cut sandwiches and hamburgers into quarters arranged around the edge of the plate, with fries/chips/crisps in the center. The smaller size makes it easier to prevent fallout while eating one-handed, as I’m often reading when I snack.
I don’t hate crusts and I don’t leave them. It’s just that when I’m hungry, I want bites with a good proportion of the good stuff. The filling in most sandwiches peters out toward the crust. Sometimes there’s nothing but bread and spread.