Is a Hot Dog a Sandwich?

The sun beats down on the sidewalk and sweat beads on your brow. You haven’t eaten anything since a bowl of Cheerios at 8 am. You glance at your watch. It’s 1 PM. Five hours. Before you can find a vending machine, a man yells at you from across the street in a thick New Jersey accent. “Get ya hot dogs! Get ya hot dogs here!” 

Yes. You run across the street, pulling out your wallet as you go. 

“How much?” you ask, staring at the hot dogs grilling behind the thin plexi-glass of his cart. 

“That’ll be five-fifty. Five-seventy five with the onions.” His accent is thick, and it’s almost impossible to understand what he’s saying. Still, you pull out a handful of bills and slap them down on the counter of his street cart. 

“Hold on.” He grabs your wrist. “I got a question for ya. Is a hot dog a sandwich?” 

Pause. 

Let’s think about it. 

You could say yes, it is a sandwich. But you may be wrong and you don’t want to risk angering the man and his passion for hot dogs. Saying no and being wrong could also bring his wrath upon you. You only have a little bit of time to answer, and the man doesn’t have much patience. 

A sandwich, as defined by Oxford Reference, is “two pieces of bread enclosing a filling”. Another definition from Merriam-Webster says that a sandwich is anything that “consists of at least one slice of bread covered with food”. So which one is correct?

Joey Chestnut, the hot dog eating champion who’s record currently stands at seventy-six hot dogs and buns in ten minutes, posted a Tweet in 2017 that said, “I want it to be known [that] the Hot Dog stands free and independent from the tyranny of the sandwich.”

In an article from Sports Illustrated, Rachel Ray said that, “A hot dog is a hot dog, unless I make a sandwich out of chopped up hot dogs.” 

If you don’t trust either of these celebrities, let's think about the construction of both hot dogs and sandwiches. A hot dog has a bun while sandwiches have two separate pieces of bread. A sandwich also has a thin. single type of meat between the bread, but hot dogs have a mixture of different meats, often mechanically-separated chicken. Going on, a hot dog usually has different toppings than a sandwich such as onions, ketchup, and mustard.

To continue the argument as to why a hot dog isn’t a sandwich, we can use the four-point test created by The Atlantic:

1. It must consist of two exterior pieces 

2. These pieces must be made of bread or bread-like products 

3. The entire thing must be primarily horizontal (sitting flush with the plate rather than perpendicular to it)

4. The entire thing must be portable 

If we go by these rules, then a hotcdog is not in the same category as a sandwich; it fails number three. 

And, according to a survey done in 2016 by the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC) with over 2,000 participants, 57% of Americans believed that a hot dog was not a sandwich. Janet Riley, a member of the NHDSC, drove home the point by saying that, "It is the Chicago Hot Dog Fest, not Chicago Sandwich Fest. A sandwich fest, while still delicious, would have to work harder to draw tens of thousands [of people] year after year. The hot dog is a magnet for fans.”

So, armed with factual information and rhetorical appeals, you bravely face the hot dog stand man. 

“No,” you say. “A hot dog is not a sandwich.”
The man nods and slaps a tube of mechanically-separated meat onto a ketchup-slathered bun. “That’s right, kid. Good job.You won’t be swimming with the fishies tonight.” 

Chestnut, J. It’s #NationalHotDogDay as President, I want it to be known the Hot Dog stands free and independent from the tyranny of the sandwich.  (2017, July 19). Twitter.com. Retrieved 8 September 2021 from https://twitter.com/joeyjaws/status/887766622152253441?lang=en

Garber, M. “A Hot Dog is Not a Sandwich.”  (2015, November 5). The Atlantic. Retrieved 8 September 2021 from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/11/its-not-a-sandwich/414352/

Gray, A. “Q&A: Rachael Ray on Her Game Day Routine, Favorite Football Food and Life as a Jets Superfan.” (2017, September 15). Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 8 September 2021 from https://www.si.com/eats/2017/09/15/rachael-ray-new-york-jets-gameday-food

“Sandwich.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 8 September 2021 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sandwich. 

“New Polling Shows Most Americans Agree: A Hot Dog is Not a Sandwich.” (2016, August 1). National Hot Dog & Sausage Council. Retrieved 8 September 2021 from https://www.hot-dog.org/press/new-polling-shows-most-americans-agree-hot-dog-not-sandwich 

“Sandwich.” (n.d.). Oxford Reference. Retrieved 8 September 2021 from https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100440490