Encyclopedia of Sandwiches

list of sandwiches

Encyclopedia of Sandwiches

If there is even the smallest, tiniest, single micron thin, silver lining to this past year of being completely shut in, (for me at least) it is a seemingly renewed (or awakened) public interest in sandwiches. This is evidenced best by the viral Encyclopedia of Sandwiches poster.

….and at worst by the “everything is a sandwich” people.

I’m not entirely sure where this came from. As far as I can tell its viral incarnation was from a reddit post about 8 months ago. I should have written about is then, but I’m going through a bit of a George RR Martin phase. This post is my “Winds of Winter”

Anyway, I assume it’s a poster designed by some poster company, though I can’t seem to find the original.

Now, as somewhat of well known sandwich aficionado, this ubiquitous chart shows up regularly in my DMs, and I’m definitely not complaining.

sandwich dad encyclopedia

It’s retro artwork, keen layout, and seemingly final and complete word on every popular sandwich out there is beautiful and relevant. I even made it into a real life poster at my local Wal-Mart. I tried to hang it in my home office, but since my office is actually just an Ikea vanity in our bedroom, the missus gave my attempt a very abrupt ‘no dice’. So it now hangs in my kitchen.

Like I said, I like it. It’s beautiful, and thorough. It is however, sometimes obscure and redundant, It’s numbering makes no sense, and it is of course – incomplete.

Fixing and Mixing

There are 40 sandwiches listed on this chart, and their order is literally all over the map.

The first thing I wanted to do was re organize the thing so it made more sense. And when I say that, I mean specifically in reference to my blog. If you’ve read my ramblings from the start you’ll know I’ve talked about sandwich ascension levels. If you were brand new to the concept of sandwiches (ie: a child. Specifically, my children) then you need a graduated curriculum based on your taste and ability.

Essentially you start with peanut butter and work your way up.

Like I said, there are 40 sandwiches here, so let’s divide them into 4 categories of 10.

  1. Home Sandwiches
  2. Restaurant Sandwiches
  3. Specialty and Regional Restaurant Sandwiches
  4. International Sandwiches (catered to North Americans, apologies rest of the world)

Please note that this is by no means a ranking of sandwiches as far as which are the very best. This is just a way to order the 40 types selected that (to me) makes more logical sense

Home

1. PB&J

2. Bologna

3. Ham and Cheese

4. Tuna Salad

5. Chicken Salad

6. Egg Salad

7. Grilled Cheese

8. BLT

9. Bacon, Egg and Cheese

10. Thanksgiving

 

Specialty/Regional

21. Italian Sub

22. Cheese Steak

23. Italian Beef

24. Meatball

25. Lobster Roll

26. Cucumber Tea

27. Bagel and Lox

28. Po’ Boy

29. Kentucky Hot Brown

30. Liverwurst

Restaurant

11. Clubhouse

12. Monte Cristo

13. Roast Beef

14. French Dip

15. Reuben

16. Cuban

17. Fried Chicken

18. Patty melt

19. Pulled Pork

20. Veggie

International

31. Croque Monsieur

32. Croque Madame

33. Jambon Beurre

34. Falafel

35. Gyro

36. Banh Mi

37. Torta

38. Tonkatsu

39. Caprese

40. Bocadillo

There.

Isn’t that better? If I could draw I would fix it on the poster as well, but maybe I’ll just try some Photoshop magic.

sandwich dad encyclopedia

There we go.

While I’m at it though I must absolutely mention some of glaring omissions of this viral chart.

The Missing

For those of you who don’t know, ol’ sandwich dad is pretty popular on the TikTok these days. As of writing this, almost 30 thousand followers who regularly watch me make sandwiches in 60 seconds or less and then comment that they think I sound like Tim Allen

Uuuuuurrrrrrrrghhh!?

Fame among zoomers notwithstanding, the reason I put this chart up in my kitchen was for an easy visual reference to the videos I’ve made, and those I planned to make. The problem is , there are so many sandwiches that I want to make ( and have made) that are glaringly absent from this seemingly ultimate list. Here are just a few I’ve noticed.

-Muffuletta

Best Muffuletta
muffuletta on homemade bread

-Burgers

-Dagwood

-Pork Chop

-Brown Frown

-Smørrebrød

smorrebrod
Danish smorrebrod

-Gatsby

-Kiwi

-English Butty

-Meatloaf

-Denver

-Stoner Bagel

TABLE sandwich

-Lunberjack

-Chicken Parm

-Elvis

So there’s another 15 right there, and I’m not even close to covering them all. For example, “The Charted Sandwich Board” which I’ve recently discovered has 85 different sandwiches, organized by type of filing and including each sandwiches region.

sandwiches of the world
85 sandwiches

…and they still are missing most of the sandwiches I’ve just listed.

The Plan

So, here is the plan. ….or a series of plans I guess. The future of sandwich dad right here.

First, I’m going to continue making videos of all the sandwiches on The encyclopedia of sandwiches until I have run the gamut. As my Tiktok fans will tell you: gotta catch em all.

Second, I’m going to continue writing about these 40 sandwiches in the new order I’ve identified above. Next up I suppose will be an article about the thanksgiving sandwich.

Third, I need to create a new ultimate sandwich poster. Stealing ideas from both the encyclopedia of sandwiches and the charted sandwich board, and then inserting my own idea….which will require that I make another separate reference chart. Shit’s gonna get complicated, and obviously take a while.

Here’s the idea: I’ve long been a proponent of applying the science of taxonomy, the biological classification method to food, and especially to sandwiches. I even got my daughter to help me make a really lousy chart back in my hot dog post.

Essentially: every sandwich should be it own species under an umbrella of class, order, family, and genus. Once I have my ultimate chart, I’ll need to break down each sandwich by it component parts. (ie: filling, bread, region, qualities, etc) and assign it under the umbrella. Controversially, this will include both hot dogs and wraps being under the sandwich umbrella, but as sure and a platypus is a mammal, a hot dog is considered a sandwich even though it lays eggs and lactates through weird grooves on it skin.

And finally, just to prove that this endeavour is designed to drive myself completely mad, when I’ve completed a video of every sandwich in the encyclopedia of sandwiches, I will make a super cut of all 40. I will then continue with the encyclopedia , but doing each sandwich again, re thought as a hot dog.

This is Sandwich Dad, good day.

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