Is a hot dog a sandwich?

Some say yes, some say no. The debate is intense in eastern Pennsylvania – a welcome antidote to the poisonous polemics of today’s political invective.

The hot dog question itself reflects a truism: The less important something is in the cosmic scheme of things, the more excited the debate will become.

One food industry group gets it.

“Our verdict is…a hot dog is an exclamation of joy, a food, a verb describing one ‘showing off’ and even an emoji. It is truly a category unto its own.” That is the verdict of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council.

But the council stops short of naming that “category of its own.” Faint of heart.

The misconception is widespread. Here is Merriam-Webster, a prominent dictionary: “Given that the definition of sandwich is ‘two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between,’ there is no sensible way around it. If you want a meatball sandwich on a split roll to be a kind of sandwich, then you have to accept that a hot dog is also a kind of sandwich.”

This bifurcation goes on, and on, through screen after screen on any reputable browser.

Some say a hot dog is a sandwich. Some say a hot dog is not, that its partially sliced bun does not meet the “two slices of bread” around which no less a personage than John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, bestowed his eponymous moniker as delicious.

Wikipedia, which is always correct (Ahem!), tells us that the Earls of Sandwich represent “a noble title in the Peerage of England, held since its creation by the House of Montagu. It is nominally associated with Sandwich, Kent.”

So we might be tempted, in awe at nobility, to accept the earl’s imprimatur.

But back in 1776, we Americans revolted against the concept of being bound by British snootiness.

And the hot dog originated in America, not in Great Britain. So it ought to be up to us, not to some uppity earl, to decide.

My own decision is this: 1. A hot dog is not a sandwich. 2. A hot dog is not a non-sandwich. 3. The hot dog is instead a “sammich.”

Regular readers know that a hot sausage, slathered with peppers and onions and nestled within a giant-sized cousin of a hot dot bun, is a sammich. Readers know that because, each summer, I wax gastronomically ecstatic about sammiches.

At county fairs and community festivals, I eat sammiches every summer, in blatant defiance of spouse-imposed restrictions designed to keep me healthy via a steady diet of rabbit food, which causes teeth to shrink and stomachs to whine piteously in quest of meat.

In a pinch, a kielbasa can substitute for a hot sausage and still be called a sammich. So can a hot dog, but only of the foot-long variety.

The foundation of a sandwich, an entirely different food, is slices of bologna placed between slices of bread that have been covered, respectively, with mustard and mayonnaise – but never ketchup.

I first wrote about sammiches back in 2011, while trying to explain to my wife that it is impossible to munch a true sammich without dribbling a splash or two of grease onto a shirt or sweatshirt.

“Well then, use a fork and put it on a plate,” she said.

Abomination! Desecration!

One could put a hamburger onto a plate. One should put doughboys, elephant ears and similar fried dough concoctions onto plates.

One usually serves a sandwich on a plate or platter. Bologna defines sandwiches. Acceptable substitutes include ham or salami, layered between lettuce (NOT iceberg!) and cheese, preferably provolone or cheddar.

Plates do not go well with hot dogs. A plate can be used, but it is akin to eating a banana without peeling off the skin.

With a hot dog, one lifts it from a grill, griddle or pan with tongs (forks can be substituted), then inserts it into (not on top of) something made from bread dough but not sliced like bread. We call that a “bun!”

The bun differentiates the exterior appearance of a hot dog from the exterior appearance of a bologna/cheese concoction, thereby excluding it from the common grouping of “sandwich.”

As for the internal appearance of either, the ingredients of either meat … some things are better left said.

Even our erudite and educated Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf gets it wrong. Gov. Wolf recently added his voice to those who falsely claim that a hot dog is a sandwich. Don’t blame him too much. He does hold a doctorate, but his degree is in political science.

The hot dog, like its cousin the hot sausage, is, properly prepared and bun-encased, neither fish nor fowl, and certainly not a sandwich.

It is a “sammich.”

Yum.

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Denny Bonavita is a former editor at newspapers in DuBois and Warren. He lives near Brookville. Email: denny2319@windstream.net.