Ok, time for a bitching session

I would like to clear the air about an issue that I take seriously.

That issue is FOOD!

After all, I feel I owe my life to it as I don't think I could have made it this far without it.

Now this particular little bitching session is directed at a much focused aspect and environment concerning food.  This would be, going to a restaurant and the issue of getting a sandwich.

The particular issue I have is with toppings on a sandwich.

It use to be that when I was a boy, in my teens, or just plain young (who am I kidding, I am young now…heh), went to a restaurant and ordered a sandwich that came with toppings, the toppings came….where?  On the top!  That is where every place put the toppings on a sandwich…. The top.  However, 8o| for quite a few years now little by little I have been encountering a bizarro phenomenon that has been spreading like rumors at an all employee meeting.  This phenomenon is that whenever I go to a restaurant these days, almost regardless of which one, and order a sandwich, I keep receiving my sandwich with the toppings on the bottom bun.  Grrrrrrrrrrr......    Some of you may wonder why I care or perhaps why it is such a big deal to me.  Well, I am about to elaborate.

     1. Toppings have always been placed on the top of the primary ingredient of a sandwich.  That is to say, between the primary ingredient (usually of the meat family) and the top bun.  That is just the way it is done!

     2. It is for the reason explained in explanation #1 that these condiments are referred to as “Toppings”.

     3. Now, it’s not just a pet peeve of mine that they don’t put the condiments on the top, there is, and has always been a logical reason for it as well.  The reason is simple and it has to do with physics.

• The natural shape in which bread rises causes the bread to form into that of a dome shape.  This shape means that cutting directly across the X-Axis of the bun, that the top half of the bun will be larger (or thicker) than the bottom half of the bun.

• Placing condiments, (especially those with moisture, as will drip), on top of meat, does not necessarily cause meat to become soggy as the fluids inherently flow downward via gravities pull.  Meat acts as a good insulator against moisture to bread.

• The top bun being thicker than the bottom bun is inherently more adept at absorbing any excess moisture from any ingredients placed below it as part of the sandwich.  Even when that moisture is being sustained above the insulation of a layer of meat.

• Unfortunately, since the bottom bun is thin, it is inherently poor at absorbing moisture from any ingredients placed above it as part of a sandwich.  However, it can sustain its own form, shape, and texture to within a reasonable degree, if it has a protective layer of meat to shield it from the moisture of any ingredients, such as condiments.

• Ultimately, the bottom bun of a sandwich, thin as it is, is completely unsuitable for the expectation that it may be able to hold, shape, form, and texture with the condiments, and most liquid of ingredients placed directly atop of it and compressed by whichever meat has been chosen as the centerpiece of the sandwich.

• All this, having been said, to give precise reasons why the toppings need to be placed under the top bun on a sandwich, to state it more simply.  The bottom bun is too thin to support the toppings; the top bun can handle it.  If you put the toppings on the top where they belong, the sandwich will be ok, and if you put them on the bottom (where they do not belong), the bottom bun will get soggy and fall apart before you can ever finish the sandwich.

     4. Another thing that bothers me is when people fix something that wasn't broken. Given the fact that for years, I always received my toppings on the top of sandwiches and then suddenly, all these restaurants started placing my toppings on the bottom of my sandwich, I can only imagine that someone came along, at some point, and convinced people that placing the toppings on the bottom of sandwiches was a better idea.  A classic case of fixing something that wasn't broken.  I hate to say it (and I’m sorry to any New Yorkers out there) but it has been my experience throughout my life as a south Floridian that most of the time these type of changes come about, they do because of influence from transplanted New Yorkers.  I know this may sound bizarre, unreasonable, and perhaps unbelievable but I have witnessed changes in my hometown over time that has been the influence of transplants from New York.  I usually refer to it as the carpetbagger affect.  You see, while growing up, there was always numbers of other kids that would be new in town and would talk and brag about how they were from New York.  They would go on and on about how much better New York was, how boring Florida was, how much better the food in New York was, the schools were, and how tough everyone was.  After a while, you just learned to recognize the same old drivel whenever one of these transplants would start into one of these rants and you simply roll your eyes.  I would go into more detail about the carpetbaggers and their idiocy, but that would be another blog.  Anyway, over the years you would find stores and products advertising, “New York style” this and “New York style” that, whether it be a deli, cheesecake, hot dog, pizza.  They always had to turn everything into New York style to pacify the transplanted carpetbaggers.  I might add that having tried a number of proclaimed New York styled products that I didn't find them even remotely special, especially the pizza.  The New York style pizza is always thin floppy, greasy, and cannot support itself.  Of course, you could never make such a statement to a transplanted carpetbagger because inevitably you would get the standard response about “Well, this isn't the real thing” and “You have to go to New York to get the real thing”.  But I digress.  To get back to my original point, this issue with the toppings of sandwiches be moved from the top to the bottom is just the sort of illogical change that would be made by one of these transplanted carpetbaggers.  It has all the classic earmarks, or should I say it, it just has the smell of a New Yorker all over it.  Part of the clincher would be a transplant would affect such a change and then act  as if “this how it has been all along” or that “the toppings where suppose to be on the bottom all along”.  So, all this having been said, to put it more simply, It had to be the idea of a New Yorker.

     5.  Finally, another simpler reason that the toppings should go on top and I don’t know if I mentioned it before but THEY ARE CALLED TOPPINGS!!!!

As an example:

             

             Correct Sandwich                                Incorrect Sandwich