Soup, Sandwich or Salad - The Trifecta of Food Theory
Introduction
Human cuisine is incredibly varied and creative. The culinary arts are nearly limitless in terms of flavours, textures, and combinations of ingredients. By just changing a few ingredients one dish becomes something completely different. Every culture and even subculture has its unique traditional dishes and human history is rich with the development of techniques, recipes, and ingredients. But what if I told you that every kind of dish can be categorised into one of three categories?
Looking at the composition and structure of any meal you can sort it into three different categories: soup, sandwich, or salad. While a controversial and reductionist idea, especially to culinary purists we will deep diver into each category and explain the reasoning behind this idea. What purpose does this serve? Honestly not much than a bit of whimsical fun, and if you’re ever looking to pointlessly argue about something meaningless with someone, this is a great topic. Before we get into it let’s set up the framework, our mise en place if you will.
These definitions rely on the elementary and essential forms of all foods. It depends on three main principles: the amount of liquid in any dish, the number of distinguishable layers and thirdly the lack of liquid and layers. The ingredients are irrelevant, any combination of ingredients can constitute one of these categories, and the amount of ingredients are irrelevant. The thing that matters is simply the physical form it takes within this framework of liquid, layers and the absence of both. Let’s also remember that we’re not discussing drinks here, but rather consider it a separate entity from food, however, if we were almost, if not all - would fall into the category of soup. The categorisation of any given dish is depending on which category meets the most requirements. E.g a creamy and saucy pasta dish could be somewhere in between soup and salad, if it has more liquid than solid it should be considered salad and vice versa. Let’s get into the thick of it and start by discussing soup.
Soup
Soups are beloved meals all over the world, they usually constitute more than 50% liquid compared to solids and always remain in a somewhat liquid state. A particularly thick soup, porridge or smoothie should still be considered soup due to its liquid nature. As mentioned the ingredients are unimportant to the classification of a soup and it may contain meats, dairy products and vegetables, what all soups have in common is the amount of liquid in the meal and its ratio compared to the other ingredients. E.g. dressing is a liquid added to salad, but unless the lettuce is swimming in dressing it’s not a soup. This ratio should be high enough that every other ingredient is at least touching some liquid, and 50% or above is usually where soups find themselves. What we need to think about and take into consideration here is the temperature; which seems unimportant - we know there are hot soups and cold soups. But what about frozen soup? Have you considered that? When frozen liquids turn to solid, that’s the nature of water and the same is true for soups. I bet you haven’t thought about ice cream as a soup before but now you will. Because truthfully that’s what any kind of gelato, ice cream and sorbets are: they’re all soups. Frozen firm and enjoyed in their paradoxical state of both liquid and solid. That’s why we have to take into consideration temperature.
Because though solid while frozen these foods are mostly liquid at room temperature. There’s another curious things that happen in temperatures, namely the opposite. At high temperatures solid turns to liquid. Does this make cheese into a soup? Are volcanoes filled with molten stone soup? No, because we consider these definitions from their average temperature - meaning what is commonly understood to be room temperature. Just like ice cream doesn’t turn into a salad when frozen neither does a cheese turn into soup because it melts. If more liquid is added to the chemical base of say a cheese then yes it could be classified as a soup. Now I hear what you say - isn’t all life on earth consisting mostly of water? Does that make everything soup? No, and don’t be pedantic and semantic in this deeply important discussion about the culinary culture of Earth. You know exactly what it means to be liquid and solid and you perfectly understand when something is either more solid or liquid. Now to wrap up the story of soups let’s look at some examples of soup dishes in different cultures. Some you may know and love and others may be a little perplexing at first but I promise it will make sense.
We’ve already gone over ice creams, but have you considered cereal with milk to be a soup? Because it is. Lots of soups have a crisper - usually a salad element added to them for textural reasons. Think about the classic French croutons added to a variety of soups. Well-known soups include stews, vegetable soups, borsch, and a million others. The liquid may be warm or it may be cold, it may be water, stock, milk, cream etc. Porridges are usually soups as well, they may be thicker in consistency but they are all cooked in a large amount of liquid along with grains, rice and more. Soups are by far the easiest category to understand because they rely on just one simple thing and that’s the liquid. Viewing any food from this point of view makes it easy to determine whether something is soup or not. We’ll now move on to discuss the more difficult-to-grasp categories - beginning with sandwiches.
Sandwich
Our general understanding of a sandwich is quite limiting and won’t be enough for this category. You’re going to have to leave behind almost everything you understand a sandwich is to truly begin to comprehend everything that can be a sandwich. First, let’s get down to basics and appeal to your prior knowledge - one common understanding of a sandwich is ingredients layered between two pieces of bread and this is a good start. Because this is where the sandwich begins, however, let’s not be fooled into thinking that’s where they end. The first key component to a dish being a sandwich is the layering, and as stated in the introduction the ingredients are unimportant. This one might ruffle some Italian feathers but with this in mind, it becomes clear that such a carefully layered and structured dish as lasagna is clearly a sandwich. Take some cheese, tomato sauce and maybe even some bechamel sauce and put it between two pieces of bread and no one would question you about its sandwich nature. The carbohydrate-heavy layer of bread is here exchanged with thin sheets of pasta. The pasta itself is pretty close in ingredients to bread. What’s important to remember however is that layers can be open-faced, just like a sandwich and the ingredients don’t have to be between two of the same layers. Just like a “normal” sandwich can be a layer of bread with ingredients on top so can any structurally layered dish. Think about pizza - a very obvious sandwich. It has a thin layer of dough, not at all different from bread and then additional ingredients on top. Etymologically the word “pizza” is derived from “pita” meaning bread, and historically tomatoes were first introduced in Italy in the 16th century. Meaning for most of the country’s history pizza was really a flat bread with cheese. Anything clearly layered with mainly solid ingredients is therefore a sandwich. Things like hamburgers, cakes and much more. However, we can’t stop there because we need to expand our understanding of a sandwich a little bit further.
The understanding of a layer isn’t enough to encompass all the sandwiches and while it is enough for a lot of dishes it’s not enough for us to cover all of the world’s cuisines. Adding additionally to our understanding of a sandwich then is also something more encompassing. Namely that - encompassing. Layered more like the earth itself, or an egg or even an onion a sandwich is also a dish encompassed in an outer layer. Wraps like döner kebabs, filled pitas, even stuffed potatoes, paprikas and scotch eggs are all sandwiches. Dim sum and dumplings are sandwiches usually served along with soup. Most of these are made with an outer layer of a carb-heavy and often glutenous ingredient like wheat or bread but it doesn’t have to be. Rolls like sushi, spring rolls, cabbage rolls and a large variety of foods wrapped in all kinds of ingredients ranging from wheat products to vegetables and even meats are all sandwiches. When cut in a cross-section these dishes are all clearly layered and therefore this layering remains the central point of identifying and classifying foods into the category of sandwich. We’ll continue with a few more examples of sandwiches before finally moving on to the last category.
Lots of beloved foods like tacos, hot dogs, hamburgers and so on are all takes on the sandwich. They’re all layered or encompassed by usually a single product, in these instances different types of breads. Sandwiches include famous dishes like banh mi, grilled cheese and many more but also include dishes often overlooked, like the examples stated previously. Rolls of all kinds, cakes, filled foods and wraps and so much more. It can be tough to tell what is a sandwich but with your knowledge of soups and salads, I’m certain you will have no problem figuring it out. Remember that a sandwich is clearly layered and or encompassing of the main ingredients. Now for the final and deceivingly simple category of salads.
Salad
A salad might sound simple but this category is perhaps the most difficult one as it is only understood through the absence of elements identifying the other two. Salads are very much like soups and sandwiches but they are less liquid and not distinctly layered or encompassed in something. Salad is the most basic form of dish, it is simply a mix of ingredients thrown together. In most cases, a soup is a salad with added liquid and sometimes blended to a homogenous structure. Salads are intuitive and easy to make, you just throw edible things together and have little to no concern about structure and form. The ingredients don’t matter, you can have pasta, vegetables, meats and so on. The essence of a salad is just the absence of the two other main components: the liquid which makes a soup and the structure which makes a sandwich.
When you think salad you probably think of lettuce, fruits and vegetables mixed in a bowl, but to truly understand what a salad can encompass you have to expand that understanding a bit. Just think of any food which is assembled in a somewhat chaotic way and that doesn’t have a substantial amount of liquid in it. Pasta dishes like spaghetti bolognese, and carbonara but also Asian dishes like fried rice, stir-fries and so on are all just different ingredients and components combined without layers and with little or no liquid added. A nacho plate is a salad, a cheese board is a salad and many more. For this definition and category to fully work you need to disregard the potential need for lettuce and greens. Just think of the composition and general structure of a dish. Does it have enough liquid to be a soup? Does it have layers like a sandwich? If not then it’s a salad. Simply summarised a salad is a mix of ingredients thrown together into a final dish. They may be more traditional dishes like pasta salad, Caesar salad, coleslaw and Greek salad; however, for us to fit all the dishes into the world into three simple categories you’ll be provided with some more unusual examples of salads.
Some unorthodox salads include: meatballs and mashed potatoes, most pasta dishes, steak and potatoes, roast vegetables and many many more. Salads are best identified by their lack of liquid and lack of layered structure. With this knowledge, you should be able to identify salads correctly and most dry foods are probably salads.
Summary
All human foods and dishes can be categorised into these three simple categories: soup, sandwich and salad. These definitions don’t take into account what ingredients are used only how they are assembled and the structure of the final dish. Using this framework to approach the rich history of the culinary arts provides us with the perspective that on a fundamental level, all human culture has a lot in common and that the very essential form of food is quite basic and the richness of these different expressions of cooking comes from a variety of factors. Availability, human trade, and agriculture all play a big part in how a dish is formed. What sets most dishes apart from one another isn’t the form and structure of the meal itself but rather the techniques and ingredients. Disregarding both of them the physical structure and assembly of food seem very common. The truth is that food can’t be reduced down to these simplicities, it’s an incredibly complex aspect of human nature which is incredibly varied and rich, and to fully understand and appreciate it you have to understand the geographical places, their tools and the food available to them. I come from a culture whose food is considered incredibly bland and boring, mostly relying on salt and butter to elevate the flavours, but the truth is that for most of human history, nothing else was available. Some of what we consider to be the most flavourful and rich cuisines have had thousands of years of incredibly fertile and varied biological biomes. In the end, however, all of these cultures have a lot in common, all around the world soups, sandwiches and salads are continued to be enjoyed every day. On a fundamental level that’s not about to change. We will always add liquid to our soups, we will always layer our sandwiches and we will always mix our salads.
