Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

He really is that stupid.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Let there be snark.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

This blog will pay for itself.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

This fight is for everything.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / Respite Open Thread: Depending on Perspective

Respite Open Thread: Depending on Perspective

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******

Let’s be honest: By the criteria of this batch — if you’re gonna include meatball subs, grilled cheese & pulled pork — America’s most popular sandwich is the hamburger, a front-runner of Joe Biden proportions.

Reader Interactions

191Comments

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    @rikyrah: Echoing what others have said, no sauerkraut means you’re eating a corned beef sandwich with swiss on grilled rye.

  12. 12.

    satby

    No stromboli? Unpossible!

    I came home from work and because I was trapping the tiny kitten in my yard I went around to the back of my garage. Where I found my door kicked open and my bicycle and electric lawnmower stolen. Considering everything else happening today I can’t really even feel that bad though it’ll be a PIA to replace them. But the great news is tiny kitten was trapped safely and has joined the other two in my bathroom, where every potty break is an adventure for all four of us.

  13. 13.

    ruemara

    Some of us love reubens and can’t have all the salt with sauerkraut, so take your sandwich policing elsewhere. Because it is decidedly not just a corned beef sammich. RIP Stage Deli, all hail Katz.

    And a grilled cheese? Really? Y’all… seriously lame. Over a meatball sub? Weirdos.

  14. 14.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    When I lived in white bread NH, a Reuben was corned beef, American cheese, and cole slaw (in place of sauerkraut). It was an abomination.

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    Banh mi or go home! The PBJ would actually kill me, so I won’t fight anybody for it during the apocalypse.

  17. 17.

    M31

    I’ll second the “WTF no cheesesteak?” and add “WTF No Philly roast pork with rapini and hot peppers?”

  18. 18.

    satby

    @ruemara: it’s not even my favorite, and now I want a grilled cheese. It’s comfort food, rumara. What moms make kids when they’re sick and home from school.

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    @ruemara:
    I know of ONE place that makes a grilled cheese to die for. Other than that, yeah, meh.

    A panini press helps a lot.

  20. 20.

    Martin

    If anything confirms this is a white people country, it’s that sandwich lineup.

    I like every one of those choices, but man did they omit a lot.

  22. 22.

    ruemara

    @satby: Hmmm. Outside my ken. A good mustardy, horseradish reuben, though. God bless Jews for their awesome food & deli culture of NYC. Truly the chosen people. Boy, I miss lox.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: Why the fucking fuck would someone put mayo in something and call it a Reuben?

    @ruemara: If you can’t have sauerkraut because of the salt, you have my sympathy. That, however, does not give you the right to call a non-Reuben a Reuben. You could follow in the tradition of the Rachel and call it a Ross though.

  26. 26.

    debbie

    @satby:

    The best pastrami sandwich I’ve ever had was from a deli here (Katzingers). The pastrami had just come out of the oven (literally). I had it plain on crusty rye bread. Any sort of condiment would have ruined that juiciness.

    ETA: Just saw your post about your homecoming. Bastards.

  28. 28.

    satby

    @Another Scott: If really is all about the perspective. I felt bad, then I opened the Kindle and saw the news. I have no problems at all really. Gratitude!

    @debbie: nah, it’s cool. I saved another kitty from the streets and no one shot up the market today. It’s all fine. Weird that’s how we live now.

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    What??? No butter and sugar on white bread??!?!?

    (That was one of my mother’s guilty pleasures. Yes, she also liked liver. Why do you ask?)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  30. 30.

    delk

    No Italian Beefs or combos or Polish sausage.

    In other news I found a bag of weed this morning on Michigan Avenue. Lollapalooza is happening just down the street. Somebody’s concert got harshed.

  31. 31.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: But that is a pastrami sandwich not a Reuben. I do miss Katzingers and that place in the North Market that made massive sandwiches. It was just down the aisle from and across from the schwarma place.

  33. 33.

    debbie

    It was a sad day when Panera stopped offering their grilled cheese for grownups sandwich with three cheeses.

  37. 37.

    debbie

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I know, but it is the best sandwich I have ever had. I’ve seen but never had that sandwich from the North Market. It was just like NYC delis like Stage or Carnegie. I can’t imagine eating a whole one.

    My second best sandwich was a lobster club sandwich at Eli somewhere near 72nd.

  38. 38.

    FlipYrWhig

    I thought Michael “Not That One” Cohen was saying that he wished he was doing the Trek convention rather than covering Democratic events. Wouldn’t that be the *opposite* of stuck-up?

  39. 39.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @satby: Are you on the way to a barn dance? Because the only sibling I have is being dragged to one by his wife.

  40. 40.

    Anne Laurie

    @ruemara:

    And a grilled cheese? Really? Y’all… seriously lame. Over a meatball sub? Weirdos.

    Or vegetarians.

    Also, remember the old (pre-McD) road-trip mantra? If you’re not sure about the only diner still open, order a grilled cheese; it’s hard to ruin, and less liable to give you food poisoning…

  41. 41.

    zhena gogolia

    @Another Scott:

    As a child my favorite sandwich was lettuce and mayonnaise on white bread (good white bread, not Wonder bread). Followed closely by barbecue sauce on white bread.

  42. 42.

    Anne Laurie

    @debbie:

    When I lived in white bread NH, a Reuben was corned beef, American cheese, and cole slaw (in place of sauerkraut).

    First time they did that to me, I honestly assumed I’d gotten somebody else’s order. Somebody with no taste buds, obvs.

    (In the Granite State’s defense, I have also had some *awesome* sammiches there, mostly at diners.)

  43. 43.

    satby

    @Omnes Omnibus: no, I was referring to the sandwich / soup pairing of my childhood. My mom didn’t like to cook, so that was her pulling out all the stops for lunch: grilled cheese and a bowl of Campbell’s Tomato soup.

  44. 44.

    zhena gogolia

    Also as a child I couldn’t stand mixing food, and PB&J made me retch. I starved on a church outing to see Ben Hur because all they provided at intermission were PB&J made with neon-colored Welch’s grape jelly. Something about the color mixture of Peter Pan and grape jelly was really disgusting and I just couldn’t eat it.

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    OT: Watching the tennis match between Kyrgios and Tsitsipas in DC (on TV). Nick seems to have some sort of bipolar disorder that needs more aggressive treatment. (E.g. he smashed his racket about 5 times, got several penalties, mumbled “I’m done” on the sidelines.) He’s a great talent, but he needs to get his head together.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  46. 46.

    The Dangerman

    By this standard, my sandwich today was a Gyro, extra tzatziki (mostly because I couldn’t find a taco truck on every corner).

  47. 47.

    satby

    All this talk of cheese inspired me to make a quick Cheddar and Swiss quesadilla with (real) bacon bits. It needed Muenster though. ?

  48. 48.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @satby: One of the days I was home for Christmas last year, my mom made that for lunch. My dad and I had just cleared the driveway, etc., of snow. It was perfect.

  50. 50.

    Anne Laurie

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I thought Michael “Not That One” Cohen was saying that he wished he was doing the Trek convention rather than covering Democratic events. Wouldn’t that be the *opposite* of stuck-up?

    Cohen retweeted the Trekkie’s reply, so I think it’s all in good fun on both sides.

  52. 52.

    namekarB

    America’s most popular sandwich is the hamburger

    If the definition of a sandwich is two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between why not hot dogs?

  54. 54.

    Anne Laurie

    @debbie: If I had to pick *one* sandwich to eat forever, it’d be a properly-done chopped chicken liver on rye with spicy mustard. Maybe with a small slice of tongue, or a little pastrami, for a change.

    Even the Jewish delis in downtown Boston mostly don’t do these any more, and I’m too lazy to make my own chopped liver. So I don’t actually eat one more than a couple times a year, when the gourmet groceries sell tubs of it for Rosh Hashanah and (sometimes) Passover.

  56. 56.

    Anne Laurie

    @namekarB:

    If the definition of a sandwich is two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between why not hot dogs?

    I personally am sandwich eclectic – I will accept hot dogs, tacos, and gyros as sandwiches — but on broad popularity, there’s a lot more burger chains than hot dog dittos.

  59. 59.

    schrodingers_cat

    My favorite sandwiches don’t even appear on the list.
    Mint and cilantro chutney sandwich with tomatoes, cucumber, red onions and potato.
    Junglee chicken, which is a spicy chicken salad sandwich with green chilies and red onions.
    @Another Scott: Well toasted bread and butter with kosher salt or rock salt is pretty great too. You can replace the butter with ghee if you are feeling extra indulgent!

  64. 64.

    Jerzy Russian

    If this was a list of “most commonly eaten sandwhiches”, then I would imagine the shit sandwhich would have to be on that list somewhere.

  66. 66.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:
    Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders won’t upset us, all we ask is that you let us serve it your way : )

    You totally made me think of that corny jingle

  68. 68.

    Sloane Ranger

    I hate to be picky but in the UK, the home of the English language, a sandwich is a filling between 2 slices of bread from a loaf. A filling inside a split roll is either a roll or a bap.

    For the record, my favourite filling for either a sandwich or roll is corned beef and pickle.

  72. 72.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @zhena gogolia:

    Yeah, English, specifically American, is a global language. I never understood why Russian never became a major world language, considering the USSR was pretty important for most of the 20th century

  76. 76.

    BC in Illinois

    1) Reuben all the way — although the best Reuben in StL (Vinnie’s, on Ivanhoe) is so packed that I get it to go, take it home and split it into two sandwiches. It should be two meals, but I don’t have the self-discipline for that.

    2) My respite for the day was a FB post from my daughter, showing three g’kids (nine, seven, and three) sitting on the couch, each of them intent on the game controller in their hands. The caption:

    The day will come when our family will NOT be able to give L____ (the 3-yr-old) an unplugged controller while the others actually play a thing.
    It is not this day!!

  79. 79.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @debbie:
    Eww, mayo sandwiches ?

    Like, I don’t mind a little mayo on a sandwich, but it can’t be the entire thing for me. That’s like eating mayo-flavored ice cream

  82. 82.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @zhena gogolia:
    Not if Vladdy Boy has his way…. which will last for a hot second while most nations on Earth collapse from climate change. I’m sure all of his bullshit will really pay off then

  86. 86.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    Thanks! I remember reading that French was once the international standard language, but I didn’t remember why.

    I know the Soviets forced both ethnic minorities within their own borders as well as their satellites to learn Russian. Didn’t seem to spread much beyond that because their alphabet is confusing

  87. 87.

    Jay

    BLT, but:

    – thick cut toasted sourdough,
    – Hellmann’s mayo
    – thick cut, naturally smoked bacon from a Heritage pig,
    – room temp Krim tomatoes with a light dusting of fresh ground black pepper
    – half an inch of baby spinach.

  89. 89.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @schrodingers_cat:
    So was the Soviet Union to be honest, but I get your point. I thought France’s and Britain’s positions had something to do it.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I think that when a pope divides the world between two countries and they proceed to act on it, it counts. Although you are right in that at the peak of their colonial power, Latin was still the lingua franca of European diplomacy. Although the term lingua franca gives a hint as to a coming change.

  96. 96.

    Patricia Kayden

    Are rotis considered sandwiches? Those are my favorite filled with curry chicken and potatoes.

  97. 97.

    Jay

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    Latin, then French, ( Will I Am the Conquoror). Much of French was latin based and taught widely, while “English” was a dogs breakfast of Saxon, Nordic and and other languages a far cry from modern english and often highly regionally distinct.

  100. 100.

    Anne Laurie

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    I never understood why Russian never became a major world language, considering the USSR was pretty important for most of the 20th century

    You’ll get lots of reasons, but an important one is that by the time Russia was globally important, English (and to a lesser degree, French) was already ‘the language of trade’ (also science). If people wanted to learn a second language, it was easier / more useful to pick English as the ‘default’. Just like American high schools offer Spanish as the ‘default’ foreign language credit… and, I believe, Anglophone Canada treats French the same way.

  103. 103.

    oatler.

    I had a rolled beef sandwich at Carnegie’s back in the 70s and I still have romantic feelings for it.

  105. 105.

    Chris T.

    French is the lingua franca of … oh, I can’t figure out how to phrase this joke, dammit. :-)

  106. 106.

    Anne Laurie

    @Jay: Hell, when you can get homegrown tomatoes, just slice ’em on some good bread, add a little balsamic vinegar, and pig out — you don’t even need the pig!

  111. 111.

    CaseyL

    The best sammies I ever had were hoagies at a place called The White House in Atlantic City, NJ. We’re talking decades ago, before AC became the ruin it is today. Their hoagies were legendary; celebrities were said to have them delivered by private jet. Might have been the bread (good old-fashioned Italian), might have been the absolute perfect combo of oils and peppercorns atop the meats, cheeses, and veg. I’d get a whole one, vow to save half for later, and wind up eating the whole thing. The line to get in and order would stretch around the block.

    Next best after that were corned beef on rye from a Jewish deli in South Miami Beach when I lived there even more decades ago. Just off Lincoln Road mall, it was, and therefore near where I went to high school.

  112. 112.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JR:

    Tuna and Egg Salad above the Reuben? America really does need to be nuked from orbit.

    Agreed. It’s the only way to be sure.

  115. 115.

    Jay

    @Anne Laurie:

    Salt, pepper, Krims, balsemic vinigar, soft provalone, fresh basil,

    No need for bread,

    But I like my good bacon so much I make it myself.

  119. 119.

    BC in Illinois

    @Chris T.:

    For some time, German was the language for science and technology.

    Yes. My father, working on his doctorate in math in the early ’50s, had to get his dissertation done before the time limit on his qualifying exam in “Scientific German” ran out. That — and four sons at home — was part of why he never got his doctorate.

    (He did, later in his career, sit in on the examinations for other people getting their doctorates, so his lack of the degree didn’t hold him back much.)

  122. 122.

    Anne Laurie

    @Chris T.:

    For some time, German was the language for science and technology.

    I’d forgotten that. But I vaguely remember the German scientists were notoriously picky & parochial about non-native-speakers using ‘broken’ German… whereas Global English will accept vocabulary / pronunciation from anywhere, if it’s useful. Greek-Latin hybrids, neologisms from ‘the gutter press’, it’s all good. (A linguistics major of my acquaintance once told me that English was like McDonalds food — it might not be great, but it was easy to acquire cheaply, and you knew there’d be some available practically anywhere on the planet.)

  124. 124.

    mrmoshpotato

    @ruemara:

    And a grilled cheese? Really? Y’all… seriously lame.

    Agreed. Thinking about it – should a grilled cheese even be considered a sandwich? What do you call cheese melted on toast? Half a grilled cheese.

  126. 126.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Anne Laurie: 35 or so years ago, I was traveling in Europe and ended up staying at a youth hostel in Munich. There were a group of people from various countries staying there and we hung out together. We were Swiss, Swedish, Irish, American (duh), and a couple of others besides. As it turned out, everyone spoke at least two languages well enough to function, but English was the only one we all had in common. So English, it was and for once not out of pity. The Irish guy and I really weren’t too broken up about it.

  129. 129.

    Fair Economist

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: The Soviet Union never had the soft power of Britain and France in their heyday, nor their longevity. It was never wealthy, and its cultural influence was basically nil because it imprisoned, exterminated, or suppressed its real intelligentsia. It was good at “mausoleum culture” like classical music but nobody had to learn Russian to understand music written by Germans a century before.

    It also had a fairly short period “at the top”. France was the strongest nation in Europe for arguably more than 2 centuries; it was less than a lifetime between suppressing the Whites to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Finally, being associated with a failed and reprehensible ideology made non-Russians eager to ditch Russian influence after the fall.

    Had Russia maintained continuity with Tsarist culture like Revolutionary France did it would have been far more influential.

  135. 135.

    joel hanes

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    One reason: early computers used ASCII or EBCDIC, neither of which encodes Cyrillic. Between 1960 and the publication of the Unicode standard in 1991, computer people in all nations had strong reasons to learn at least some English.

  136. 136.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: I assume you were able to translate the Irishman’s speech into intelligible English?

    Or maybe not, depending on where he was from.

  138. 138.

    joel hanes

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Hot dogs are sandwiches.

    It’s a sausage. Inna bun. And both ends meat
    — Mr. Dibbler

    A pair of Nurnberg bratwurst, hot off the street-vendor’s cart grill, on a fresh crusty brotchen with German mustard. _That’s_ a sandwich.

  141. 141.

    Yarrow

    @Another Scott:

    butter and sugar on white bread

    I’m with your mom. Total guilty pleasure but I love it from time to time. Gotta be white bread. No exceptions.

  143. 143.

    Steve in the ATL

    What is a sandwich? Depends on the context.

    Philosophically, tacos, gyros, wraps, calzones, and such can be considered as being in the same genus as sandwiches as they serve similar purposes in different cultures and cuisines.

    If you operate a sandwich shop in a commercial development with a non-compete clause that prohibits another sandwich shop from leasing space in said development, those things are not sandwiches in the eyes of the law.

    I’ll leave to Omnes to provide citations to case law as a fun way to celebrate his birthday.

  144. 144.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: moi aussi, but there is no symmetry with “French Quarter” and “St. Germaine des Pres”.

    Nonetheless, 7th arrondissement or GTFO!

  148. 148.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: hey, in between playing golf and kayaking and grilling lamb today, I had to resolve a workers comp situation in Texas with all its weird WC laws, so I’ve done my billable duty for the day!

  149. 149.

    MomSense

    @satby:

    Sorry, Satby. That really stinks. Happy about the kitty though.

    Since I’m a veggie, I often have a puta with hummus and a bunch of hummus drizzled with a little balsamic.

    In the summer I love a fresh tomato sandwich on good bread. Maybe a little balsamic and a pinch of salt.

  153. 153.

    Brachiator

    @Sloane Ranger:

    I hate to be picky but in the UK, the home of the English language, a sandwich is a filling between 2 slices of bread from a loaf.

    And of course, if it weren’t for the UK, we wouldn’t know to call a sandwich a sandwich.

  154. 154.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @satby:

    Glad about tiny kitty, but that’s terrible about your lawnmower and bicycle — not to mention the damage to the kicked-in door ?

  159. 159.

    opiejeanne

    @ruemara:
    I’ve never had one with sauerkraut. but I see that it’s standard in all the recipes. Dave has had them at Canter’s in LA and I don’t remember sauerkraut being anywhere on the sandwich or the plate, and that’s a Real Deli so maybe my memory is borked. Their pastrami on rye is to die for.

  161. 161.

    normal liberal

    @Sloane Ranger:
    Okay, I seek an expert opinion here. How does one distinguish between the bread objects known as rolls and baps? Size, shape, grain/flour content, use of yeast, other?
    And since someone down-thread (ETA to up.) has already mentioned Mr. Dibbler, I note that his creator made numerous references to “ham rolls,” (usually at funerals) which suggests that naming the bread object is secondary to the container.
    Autocorrect wanted to change bap to Baptist.

  164. 164.

    CaseyL

    @MomSense: It was funnier the other way : )

    I’m getting about 2-3 ripe tomatoes per day off my plants. They never make it into the house to be sliced and salted; I pick ’em and pop ’em my mouth.

    I have to change my diet radically, having developed Type II diabetes. So I’m experimenting with more plant-based snacks. Discovered something wonderful: halve a ripe avocado, dig the pit out, and sprinkle some “Everything But The Bagel” on it (the ‘cado, not the pit). Then eat with a spoon straight out of the skin.

    Please don’t tell me avocados have a high glycemic load. I don’t think I could take it.

  169. 169.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Gin & Tonic: oh, it’s actually worse than that. I emailed my college roommate who’s a lawyer in Texas, suggesting we discuss this on Monday. He responded right away with a lengthy treatise in Texas WC law and we had a good legal discussion on a Saturday afternoon.

    But it’s also better than that, because in the middle of all that we drank an excellent 2016 Belle Glos Pinot noir and a pretty good 2014 Lail Vineyard cab.

  170. 170.

    opiejeanne

    @Jay: Who?

    Your comment about making your own bacon is why I ask. He cut his own bacon from the slab of… pork belly? I think that was it. The finished product was divine.

  172. 172.

    Another Scott

    @normal liberal: The first time I heard J talk about a sandwich on a “bulky roll” I wondered what on Earth she was talking about. ;-)

    (Apparently it’s a common term around Boston.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  173. 173.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Another Scott: considering the accents in Boston, they could be saying something completely different from “bulky roll”, such as “TB12” or “fuck the fucking Yankees”

  175. 175.

    Amir Khalid

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    It’s because of the English that only a minority of Irish today speak Irish. When they ruled the place, they forcibly suppressed languages other than English. They did the same in Wales and maybe Scotland as well.

  176. 176.

    TomatoQueen

    Hmph. Popular? Best? Best-loved? Terms not defined. Summer, however, is not summer without the glory of at least one lobster roll, served with melted butter or mayo but not both at once. Failing this, I note the list contains a pulled pork sammich, heavenly if someone else makes it.

  179. 179.

    J R in WV

    OK, wassa matter wit you all???

    No one says Oyster Po’ Boy — with cocktail sauce with a lotta horseradish…!!!

    Wassa matter wit you>>?????

  180. 180.

    catclub

    @CaseyL:

    Please don’t tell me avocados have a high glycemic load. I don’t think I could take it.

    I won’t, but I will tell you that the only thing that really works for me is a half-hour on the exercise
    (or road) bike. But after that diet is much less the problem.

  181. 181.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    It’s because of the English that only a minority of Irish today speak Irish. When they ruled the place, they forcibly suppressed languages other than English. They did the same in Wales and maybe Scotland as well.

    The English ruling class was still speaking French when they began suppressing the Irish, Scots and Welsh.

  183. 183.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:
    True; but once English became their language, they wasted no time suppressing the native languages and imposing their own imported language to express their rulingness.

  184. 184.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Late to the thread, but in my limited experience traveling in Europe, French is still a pretty important international language. You run into a lot of people who will say “no” when asked if they speak English, and generally they will then answer “oui” to the same question about French.

    So having even limited French is pretty useful if you want to get away from tourist traps and guided tours.

    Oh, and to weigh in on the sandwich discussion:
    1. I can’t stand egg salad, and am surprised that chicken salad (one of my favorites) didn’t make the list.

    2. Agree that a real Reuben has sauerkraut, but there’s nothing wrong with a corned beef sandwich that omits it. Also a corned beef with cole slaw is pretty good. It goes by various names in different regions.

    3. Though the Reuben is associated with Jewish delis, the best one I ever had was in an Irish pub, using their homemade corned beef. Didn’t know corned beef could be that good.

    4. Reuben purists may object, but the variants made with pastrami or turkey are also pretty good sandwiches. Both the sauerkraut and cole slaw versions.

  185. 185.

    dnfree

    Why isn’t there a plain peanut butter sandwich without jelly? That’s my favorite.

    My husband had a college roommate who ate peanut butter and raw onion sandwiches. It’s better than it sounds. Peanut butter apparently can be paired with a wide variety of options.

    And no vegetarian options other than the grilled cheese? No vegan options? That’s boring.

  186. 186.

    dnfree

    @Steve in the ATL: I commented that song that the other day on one of John’s garden posts! First heard it at an old-fashioned folk music festival at a nearly abandoned church (this was their yearly fundraiser) in rural Illinois.

  187. 187.

    dnfree

    @joel hanes: I was fortunate to hear a speech by Grace Murray Hopper in the late 1970s. She told a story about being on a tour of computer installations in Japan and getting separated from her group. She didn’t speak Japanese and no one she was with spoke English, so she said she resorted to speaking COBOL. She said “GOTO ” and they immediately understood her. So she said, “If you are ever lost in a foreign country, find a programmer and speak COBOL to them.” Unfortunately, I don’t think that would work now.

  188. 188.

    Origuy

    A friend of mine grew up on the Scottish island of Lewis. His father was punished for speaking Gaelic in school.

    The Cyrillic alphabet is loosely based on Greek and isn’t really more complicated than the Latin one. The Soviets tried to push their linguistic minorities to use Cyrillic, even when they were already using the Arabic or another one. It didn’t take with the Georgians or the Balts. Some of the Central Asian countries (the Stans) are going from Cyrillic to Latin. Some people in Mongolian are pushing for a return to the traditional Mongolian script.

  190. 190.

    Mel

    What?! No cheese coney eaters here so far?
    Childhood comfort food, college hangover food.

  191. 191.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I can’t stand egg salad, and am surprised that chicken salad (one of my favorites) didn’t make the list.

    I associate egg salad sandwiches with using up all those hard-boiled eggs at Easter. From what I understand, ‘using up the eggs before they go bad’ is pretty much the reason they were invented.

    And ‘using up the extra bits off the last night’s roast chicken’ probably had much to do with the invention of chicken salad, too. (Yes, chicken soup, but pre-thermos-bottles soup’s harder to pack in a lunch bag.) I suspect it’s lost some of its popularity because supermarkets sell pre-portioned chicken parts, so fewer little bits of leftover chicken that need to be mixed with a binder for sammich use. Also, every chain sells chicken (patty / filet) sandwiches — easier to stop at Wendys or KFC than to make chicken salad from scratch…

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