Illustration by Molly McCammon
If you want to spark drama at the next family dinner, skip the politics and ask, “Is a hot dog a sandwich?”
Strangers love to fight about it online, and in a city where many call a coney their favorite sandwich, the issue becomes a matter of honor. A Cincinnati-style chili coney is an icon of regional pride, complete with a colorful history and rival chains, but despite its many virtues, does it qualify for the name of “sandwich?”
According to Merriam-Webster, a sandwich is “two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between.” It’s appropriately vague for a clinical definition, but this is only the debate’s opening move. Definitions are like large sandwiches: The harder you hold them, the more falls out. Being technically accurate doesn’t make Merriam-Webster culturally accurate or practically useful. It does answer the age-old contention over bread, though. Split rolls count, which you already know deep in your soul if you appreciate a po’boy (one of America’s first named sandwiches), a bánh mì, or a hoagie. Subway sells sandwiches. No one contends that without an agenda.
Part of the issue is the word’s age and spread. The first written use appears in an English historian’s journal describing workers’ meals and equating a sandwich with a bit of cold meat. In 1772, a tongue-in-cheek travel book called A Tour to London; Or, New Observations on England, and Its Inhabitants by Pierre Jean Grosley sparked the popular origin story of a man at a gambling table ordering a piece of beef between two pieces of bread so he could eat without leaving the table, putting down his cards, or making life easy for cheaters by staining the deck with grease marks. Gossip linked the tale to the fourth Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu.
The word already existed, but this story may have cemented the sandwich’s reputation as a convenience food. It was something to eat while working, a handheld meal. A generously dressed coney sometimes fails this standard, but everyone knows an open-faced sandwich is a knife-and-fork affair without questioning its title. Eat a cheeseburger with a knife and fork and see what happens.
A 2015 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey report revealed nearly half of all Americans eat a sandwich on any given day. That accounts for a huge variety of diets, lifestyles, and cuisines. It’s worth noting that the study, which focused on scientific data related to nutrition, included both hot dogs and burgers. This backs up the dictionary, and it’s fair to say that anything meeting its criteria is a sandwich.
That said, a whale and a chinchilla are both mammals, but that qualification means nothing outside of a textbook. Most of us have only interacted with sandwiches for practical purposes, and any sandwich noteworthy enough to appear in a textbook concerns me on principle.
The name of a meal you hold in your hands (and heart) will vary, but if you want to define it, consider how you’d ask for a specific species. A split bun with pulled pork is a pulled pork sandwich. Two pieces of bread held together by melted cheese is a grilled cheese sandwich.
A hot dog is a filling held in bread, but you wouldn’t ask for a frankfurter sandwich at the neighborhood cookout. You’d ask for a hot dog. Just as the term sandwich has taken on a personality beyond clinical definitions, so have some popular fillings.
The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council has released multiple statements, blogs, and infographics explaining how a hot dog is not the same thing as a sandwich.
It has its own folklore, the two terms aren’t interchangeable, and it holds a unique cultural niche.
And so, we come full circle and return to our beloved coney. What is a sandwich in Cincinnati, and does a coney fit the bill? Who understands the intricacies of language and the meals it describes better than the Queen City’s two biggest chili chains?
Both Skyline and Gold Star Chili serve two types of dishes in sandwich buns. One, of course, is the great and powerful coney. The other is a chili cheese sandwich. A chili sandwich has everything a coney does minus the hot dog, suggesting the humble tube-steak itself—not the bread around it or the chili atop it—makes or breaks the argument.
Ultimately, a sandwich is a minimally defined word holding about half of America’s lunches together. No scientist or industry professional can change your faith in a hot dog’s place on the roster or your rejection of hamburgers as a sandwich subgroup. The experts, however, have spoken.
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