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.
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.
- Home Sandwiches
- Restaurant Sandwiches
- Specialty and Regional Restaurant Sandwiches
- 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.
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
-Burgers
-Dagwood
-Pork Chop
-Brown Frown
-Smørrebrød
-Gatsby
-Kiwi
-English Butty
-Meatloaf
-Denver
-Stoner Bagel
-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.
…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.
