
The Cube Rule of Food Identification - zdw
http://cuberule.com
======
andrewla
I'm a sandwich descriptivist rather than a prescriptivist. I know what a
sandwich is, and any definition that say that a hot dog is a sandwich or that
a sub/hero/hoagie is not a sandwich is a definition that I do not accept.

Similarly, a bagel with cream cheese (that is, both halves of the bagel
sandwiching cream cheese) is not a sandwich (despite the use of the word
"sandwiching" in the definition), but a bagel with turkey inside is a
sandwich.

I'm comfortable without a definition, though I look forward to hearing the
reports of the intrepid theoreticians that can yield definitions that satisfy
these criteria, much as I laud the efforts of the adjective-ordering folk in
descriptive grammar.

My rule of thumb is that if I went into a restaurant and asked the waiter "I
want a sandwich, but I don't care what kind -- surprise me!" and they brought
me an object, how angry would I be at the waiter who brought me that object.

~~~
lgessler
> any definition that say that a hot dog is a sandwich or that a
> sub/hero/hoagie is not a sandwich is a definition that I do not accept.

Isn't that still prescriptivism? Descriptivism here would mean noting what
people claim constitutes sandwichhood, and maybe noting what people's behavior
reveals about what they actually do or don't treat as a sandwich. But it would
be prescriptivist to assert a new definition of sandwichhood, even if you
argue that it's somehow more motivated than others.

~~~
andrewla
By descriptively I mean that I do not believe that we should model our usage
after rules which were derived from usage, but instead should examine our
usage and attempt to model it.

A prescriptivist says that a pronoun should match the number, gender, and
human-ness of its antecedent, and therefore “they” is not acceptable when
referring to a single person. A casual descriptivist says that they understand
what it means when other people use “they” in a singular fashion, and find
that it is a useful construct. A formal descriptivist would try to describe
how the usage and clarity is practically evolving over time. The terms
“pronoun” and “antecedent” are terms themselves modeled from actual usage,
rather than some organizing committee that decided how English should work.

Similarly for sandwich definition. The descriptivist viewpoint says that no
strict definition is necessary; that people have a casual understanding and
should model their usage on that. A prescriptivist says “here is a definition
of ‘sandwich’ that models a significant number of things that many people
agree are sandwiches, so we expand that definition and use that to label
things as sandwich or not sandwich, regardless of the common understanding”.

The key point here is that I do not feel a strict definition is necessary in
order to reasonably discuss sandwich labeling.

Practically speaking, I have found that my heuristic above generally yields
agreement from others (in particular, I have not yet found anyone who would be
happy with a hot dog under those circumstances), with occasional differences
of opinion that would be interesting for a professional sandwichologist to
examine as a question of sandwichial drift over time.

------
mazelife
This gets us classifications all the way from "no starch at all" (i.e. soup)
to "non-starch surrounded on all sides by the starch" (i.e. calzone). But I
posit the existence of an eighth category... that is to say the inverse of the
calzone, which would be "starch surrounded on all sides by a non-starch"? An
anti-calzone, if you will. Seems rather rare, but not impossible (e.g. turkey
with stuffing).

~~~
gagege
Once, while working in a pizza place I theorized the creation of what I like
to call the Dyson Pizza. Sauce, cheese, and toppings completely encircling a
sphere of bread.

~~~
mikeash
It’s appropriate that such a thing could only be baked in space.

~~~
andrewflnr
It's suddenly obvious that not only could this be baked in space, it
absolutely will be. This will be a thing when space tourism comes online. I
only hope they still call it a Dyson pizza.

~~~
mikeash
Quick, someone tell Elon Musk.

------
jetrink
Sandwiches are like fascism. In _Ur-Fascism_ , Umberto Eco talks about the
difficulty of defining the "know it when you see it" category of fascism. We
start with a set of concrete examples and we seek to define the category based
on the qualities shared by those examples. One example might have qualities A
and B, a second B and C and a third, C and D. The first thing shares no
qualities with the last, but they all belong to the same category by a kind of
transitivity. Sandwich is an agglomeration of qualities that tend to cluster
together.

~~~
mark-wagner
In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein's response to this problem
are the concepts of "language games" and "family resemblance." From
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#LangGameFam...](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/#LangGameFamiRese):

> Still, just as we cannot give a final, essential definition of ‘game’, so we
> cannot find “what is common to all these activities and what makes them into
> language or parts of language” (PI 65).

> There is no reason to look, as we have done traditionally—and
> dogmatically—for one, essential core in which the meaning of a word is
> located and which is, therefore, common to all uses of that word. We should,
> instead, travel with the word’s uses through “a complicated network of
> similarities overlapping and criss-crossing” (PI 66).

~~~
posterboy
> > ... We should, instead, travel with the word’s uses through “a complicated
> network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing”

This is untenable. It's part of the identity of certain words that they change
meaning, but that's the exception. In all other cases you can find a center of
mass, so to speak, although describing that with fever words than the word you
try to describe is mostly impossible. I need to be able to reject when
somebody talks bullshit, like Wittgenstein does there, professionally.

~~~
dmreedy
It's absolutely untenable for the practical purposes you're after.
Unfortunately, that doesn't disqualify it from being true. The more we examine
language, the more it seems to be the case that there's really no guaranteed
'centers of mass', that they can shift between corpora, that they are
different between times, geographies, social registers, and even between
individual people. Some semantic units may be more volatile than others, but
they're still all defined relative to each other within the head of a given
speaker, and non-rigorously at that. And on top of that, they've got pretty
complicated, non-rigorous connections to whatever the driving hardware
underneath looks like.

It'd be nice to have some formal process for deciding what's bullshit and
what's not. But, it doesn't seem to actually. exist in any objective sense.
The words that make the most sense to you are your own. And everyone else
always kinda seems like they're full of bullshit.

------
js8
In Czech Republic, we have "sausage in a roll", which is the same thing as
hotdog, except they make a hole in the roll (from one side only) and stick the
sausage and sauce in it. So you can nicely hold it in your hand like ice cream
cone.

Recently, some companies here have started making classic hotdogs. But I never
understood why - "sausage in a roll" is so much superior topology (for eating
on the run). On the contrary, I don't understand why Americans won't adopt
"sausage in a roll" instead.

~~~
jdblair
How do you get the hot dog toppings (mustard, relish, onions, etc.) into the
hole in the roll?

~~~
greggyb
You carve out a hole slightly larger than the sausage. You hold the roll at
approximately a 45 degree angle, while spinning it. Thus the hole remains in
place, while the bread moves around it. As you are spinning it, you put the
toppings in. Then you shove the sausage in (after acquiring enthusiastic
consent).

------
2bitencryption
This reminds me of the "grilled cheese" v. "melt" debate from Reddit a few
years back.

I really enjoy this kind of "ridiculous topic" \+ "hyper-analysis" humor.

~~~
Waterluvian
Reminds me of this game review. I wish I could find the original:
[https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/2959/baldurs-gate-
is-s...](https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/2959/baldurs-gate-is-such-a-
terrible-game)

All you have to do is misunderstand the genre of something and then review it
as that. I need a YouTube channel about this.

------
emmanueloga_
Welcome to the wonderful world of Ontology, "the philosophical study of being,
[...], existence, reality, [...] and the basic categories of being and their
relations". [0]

A narrower related field is Taxonomy, the practice and science of
classification.

I like the "cube rule" as a very coarse grained way of classifying food!
Classifications of things can become pretty crazy, in particular when they try
to classify very general and dissimilar things (example, the schema.org
vocabulary [1]).

Now someone should turn the cube rule to an OWL vocabulary so machines too,
like we humans, can understand the difference between a hot dog and a salad
[2].

0:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology)

1: [https://schema.org/docs/full.html](https://schema.org/docs/full.html)

2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Ontology_Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Ontology_Language)

------
c3534l
I would argue that sandwiches follow a prototype semantic representation in
American English. That is, there are a handful of "ideal" sandwiches which are
the first thing you think of when it comes to a sandwich. Some items are
conventionally not sandwiches. These items might have many similarities with
things which are sandwiches, but because of their cultural or culinary
significance, are in their own special category. A person may judge an object
based on their relative sandwichness which is really a distance metric in
which items closer to one of the platonic ideals of a sandwich than they are
to a not-a-sandwich are considered to be a sandwich. This way of mentally
representing categories of objects, while natural, makes forming precise,
rule-based definitions of sandwich classification inherently difficult and
inconsistent. Any algorithm for classifying a sandwich must either contain
rules which are not universally applied in all situations, or which classifies
(or fails to classify) foods as sandwiches which are not conventionally
considered sandwiches.

As a non-sandwich example of the same phenomenon, consider whether or not an
item is considered to be furniture. A few items are universally considered to
be furniture: beds, couches, desks, wardrobes. These items together form a
semantic boundary, but that boundary is not necessarily uniform. Having legs
certainly matters, but not all furniture has legs. Being not easily movable
matters, but chairs are easily moved and if couches are furniture, so are
chairs. Likewise, items which are not movable at all, such as shelves built
into the wall may not be furniture depending on who you ask. Appliances have
electronics, and appliances could be considered a special category of
furniture, or simply not be considered furniture. Some people would classify
lamps as furniture, but not televisions.

The issue is that semantic boundaries are not symmetrical. Having features
which differ from our platonic ideals and our prototypical example of the
category are not weighted equally. Some features matter more, and all of those
features together form a gestalt of sandwichness. An attempt to form hard and
fast rules about which features are necessary to be a sandwich are well-
meaning, but ultimately incorrect as they fail to appreciate the psychology of
the sandwich, what it means to hold the concept of a sandwich in your head.

~~~
tk75x
The way I see it, anything between two other pieces of another thing (separate
pieces or conjoined, doesn't matter) constitutes a sandwich. If we accept the
origin story (urban legend?) of its origin as invented by the Earl of Sandwich
so that he and his friends can snack without getting their hands dirty during
card games, then the sandwich can't be defined as a specific food item, but by
the act of putting one thing between two others. Furniture is anything used to
"furnish" a space. If the shelf was attached to the wall after the wall is
built, it's furniture. If it was built as part of the wall, it isn't.

------
yebyen
I lost it when I got to the Bonus Round... because obviously, a steak is a
salad, and soup is a wet salad? I mean how could you not get that...

------
misterbwong
This is an awesome way to explain object-oriented modeling/leaky abstractions
to a non-techie.

------
eindiran
There are a few missing variations that aren't symmetric to one of the 6
existing categories. I wonder if this implies that there are other categories
possible that haven't been made yet.

The one with the most possibility is two starch faces, as in (2), but the
starch faces share an edge.

~~~
AaronFriel
That's just a degenerate case of the taco.

~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
Is a hard shell taco that has split a sandwich?

~~~
yayana
No, there is no acceptable state between burrito and salad. A split taco is an
initial demonstration of innate knowledge and some motor control, best done
before the staff retreats.

------
curo
No true Scotsman would classify enchilada as solely sushi, when the extra
layer of cheese on top puts it in a superposition of being sushi AND toast.

~~~
gagege
I was unaware the Scottish, as a whole, had so much to say about sushi and
enchiladas. ;)

~~~
toufka
A Scotch-Egg is a very curious exception to the cube rule. It's a kind of
calzone, where edges have been limited, or a kind of 3D toast fepending on
your topplogical analysis...

------
mcphage
I think the real mistake is assuming that the answer to “is this a sandwich”
is either “yes”, or “no”. Something can be kinda a sandwich, or not really a
sandwich, or slightly a sandwich, or definitely a sandwich, or not at all a
sandwich, or anywhere in between.

Furthermore, there doesn’t have to be a consistent set of rules defining what
is and what is not a sandwich.

Arguing about it is fun, though.

------
cortesoft
This is because the categories are meant to capture some information about an
object, but we expect them to capture all of the information about an object.

[https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yA4gF5KrboK2m2Xu7/how-an-
alg...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yA4gF5KrboK2m2Xu7/how-an-algorithm-
feels-from-inside)

------
bravura
My friend has a deceptively simple answer to this question:

If you put schmear/spread/sauce on the bread, it's a sandwich.

If you put schmear/spread/sauce on the "meat", it's not a sandwich.

The distinction is that in the latter, the bread is just a vessel to get
"meat" into your mouth. In the former, the bread is part of the whole package.

------
dgzl
TIL: any food not structurally supported by other food is a salad. Like French
fries, steak, and milkshakes.

------
laszlokorte
The hotdog is classified as taco because it has three sides of the cube but I
would argue that a hotdog consists only of two perpendicular sides of the cube
because the angle between the buns is only about 90 degrees.

~~~
blt
critical insight, should be reported to the author

------
EamonnMR
I subscribe to the belief that the key feature of a sandwich is it's
horizontal alignment and stacking. Therefore a hot dog isn't a sandwich
because it's split in the middle, not stacked horizontally.

~~~
21
By your definition Subways aren't sandwiches.

~~~
EamonnMR
Actually subs are the reason that the horizontal/vertical rule needs to exist-
otherwise we could just use two separate pieces of bread as the rule. A sub is
stacked vertically whereas a hot dog is nestled horizontally.

------
quakeguy
Ok, i tried to take it serious, but i'm dying here of laughter. I am still
convinced this is meant in a quite serious way, bbut. Gneehehehhahah.... FLAG
IT!

------
delecti
I understand that many of the examples are just absurdism in action, but I
have trouble understanding the resistance to labeling a hot dog as a sandwich.

But on the other hand, my wife likes to troll me by calling buttered toast a
"butter sandwich", so maybe some rigor in our definitions would do my life
some good.

------
empath75
Topologically a toast is the same as a taco and a bread bowl. And a burrito or
wrap for that matter.

------
city41
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand
to be embraced within that shorthand description of "sandwich", and perhaps I
could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it.

------
bitxbitxbitcoin
If anyone is wondering why toast (1) is listed as an example of a sandwich
(2)... I recently learned from a kind HN commenter that toast sandwich is a
sandwich where the filling is a buttered piece of toast.

------
tcpekin
The definition that I have always stuck with is that a sandwich has leavened
bread on two sides of whatever is in the sandwich. Therefore, hot dog is a
sandwich, a taco is not, etc.

------
X31
Interesting. It all comes down to topology - of the wrapper (or cover) and the
fillings. BTW, what happens if the wrapper itself has filling, for example
falafel wrap?

------
porphyrogene
Lasagna does not have pasta (its starch component) on the bottom or the top. A
wrap (such as a falafel wrap, as it is pictured on the site) is a taco, not
sushi.

~~~
ericlewis
sushi is often wrapped the same as a taco

~~~
porphyrogene
Right, but that's not the point. I am referring the sushi standard defined in
the article based on the cube illustration. In reality there is sushi that
conforms to nearly all of those designations. Furthermore, tacos are filled,
not wrapped.

------
rprenger
This classification is incomplete without including food with only 1 side,
such as the rarely seen "Mobius Bacon".

------
justchilly
What about the cone? Hand Roles. Ice cream cones. Some crepes. Or is that a
type of Soup/Salad/Bread Bowl...

~~~
masklinn
Cones are obviously quiches/bowls.

> Some crepes.

Crepes are not trivial to classify: obviously a plain flat crepe with some
topping is a toast, a "walkaround" (usually sweet) crepe is a quiche and
sushi/wrap crepes exist (e.g. galette-saucisse[0]) but what about the
"complète" where the crèpe is folded back on the filling but not entirely?
Functionally it's closer to a calzone or a toast (it's not eaten from the
"opening") but technically it looks more like a quiche.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galette-
saucisse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galette-saucisse)

------
yellowapple
See? Poutine and steak are salads! And they said my diet is unhealthy; who's
laughing now?

------
ttoinou
I used to believe all theses things were sandwiches. How misinformed was I

------
naringas
thus
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannelloni](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannelloni)
are sushi

and real mexican tacos are too

------
mimixco
Why is pumpkin pie toast but Key Lime pie is quiche?

~~~
eat_veggies
I'm guessing the distinction is down to slice vs entire pie, rather than
flavor.

------
mattnewport
So is an open-faced sandwich an oxymoron?

~~~
aero142
Most of the sandwich debate is caused by ignoring adjectives. In the case of a
submarine sandwich, it's a sandwich except we apply the adjective submarine to
say we are modifying the bread situation. An open faced sandwich is just like
a sandwich except we remove the top piece of bread. Which is why a hotdog is
not a sandwich. We could have an adjective to say we are modifying the bread
and another to say we are modifying the filling, but then there is nothing
left of the sandwich portion, which is why we have a new word for it.

~~~
logfromblammo
Whether you call it sandwich or not, the mathematical description of a hot dog
is well within the bounds of the mathematical description of a sandwich.

Fiddling about with adjectives is about as useful as saying that squares are
not rectangles or rhombuses because otherwise they would be called rhomboid
rectangles or rectangular rhombuses.

The hot dog is a special case of a sausage submarine sandwich.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage_sandwich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sausage_sandwich)

------
Stratoscope
You can't argue with this logic!

~~~
rtkwe
The only thing I'd change is to rename the sushi category to something broader
like wrap. Sushi is a really specific foodstuff to me to be the name of that
category.

~~~
jdmichal
I thought the same. Wrap or burrito, though both have the problem that they
can be closed at one or both ends, thus changing their category...

The tweet screenshot from @Phosphatide has Japanese along the top, so I'm
assuming that's why the immediate reference was sushi.

~~~
rtkwe
That brings up an even more interesting/disturbing question does a burrito
turn into a salad after the first couple bites because one (hopefully only
one) end is open now.

~~~
setr
?

Thats a taco

It turns into a salad when it falls apart

~~~
rtkwe
According to the cube rule it would turn into a soup/salad w/ bread bowl.
Tacos have 3 open sides a partially eaten burrito has one open side. Burrito
-> taco requires a massive structural failure.

------
BenoitP
Is this what HN has become?

------
anonymousisme
Let the flame wars begin!

------
Waterluvian
I know it when I see it.

------
HillaryBriss
so, is a lobster a calzone?

------
posterboy
I have a passing interest in linguistics[3] and so let me tell you, after
intensive meditation about the topic I found that sandwich could well be
cognate to German "Wecke", a bread bun, supposedly related to 'wedge'. I can't
pin point "sand-" yet.

I think that would be crucial to determine the precise meaning. I'm very much
against either extreme, pre- or description, but I find that expanding the
sample space back to include historic meaning may yield results able to
satisfy both sides.

Maybe I can still help out. We are actually talking about the club sandwich.
Club sandwich could be, for all I know, which is very little about the club
sandwiches history, cognate to Ger. "Klappstulle" (a 2-sandwich [to use the
OP's typology] made by folding a slice over) at least the club part, and both
could go all the way back to the Proto Indo European root whence glue (to
stick together) compare Ger. "Kleber" (glue), "Kleie" (wheat-paste?), and
perhaps Old English and Gothic "hlaif" (bread) then most likely in reference
to dough, Ger. "klumpen" \- 'clump', 'glob'. A club of people sticks together.
The swinging and clubbing club could perhaps compare to 'key' (from Lt.
clavis, from a sense nail, peg, hook), as stick, sticky and clavis, claudo
show similar relations. "Klappe" means 'hatch', 'shutter', 'mouth', we say
something "klappt nicht" (doesn't function), "(um)klappen" ... it's baffling
that there's no good translation: The lid of box is a "Klappe", and closing it
shut is "zuklappen"; A "klappe" that doesn't shut tight, flaps and makes
noise, that noise is called "klappern" and from that all kinds of 'to make
noise' "klappern"; Best fit would be 'clamp'. Now it depends at which time, if
there was a relation at all, our dinners aligned or diverged. But, since you
can't take a Hot Dog to work and eat it later--already cold--it cannot be a
club sandwich, at least if folding is done primarily to stack and wrap them
without making a mess of it. Well, I made a mess of it, I didn't check
references on most my claims, but I'll have to wrap it up.

As a working hypothesis I suppose "sand" relates to Ger. "Kanten", the thick
end of a loaf, related to "Kante" (edge), but its Greek root has no secure
origin so a link to the celtic word for rim, tire giving "waybread" or
"wagonbread" (cp. Ger. "Weg" \- way; "Wegebrot") is not too promising. It's
just, I have that image of the thick end bread as a happy hobo's ration very
present from cartoons. But a better candidate would relate to butter perhaps.
Or how about "Shank", cog. Ger. "Schinken" (ham), "Schenkel" (thighs), as
something two sided, angled. Anyone reminded of John Connery? That's
ridiculous. How about "to send for" \- Ger. "gemachte Brote". I mean, there
was a time and place where ... wasn't common and bread had been eaten raw or
at least separately (... "Belag" \- topping, coating).

[1] Wiki Commons has a picture of a ca. 8000 years old specimen in the form of
a Spitzwecke
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Spitzweck_Reko_Oveg%C3%B...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Spitzweck_Reko_Oveg%C3%B6nne.jpg)

[2] from Latin canthus (“tire, edge of a wheel”), from Ancient Greek κανθός
(kanthós, “corner of the eye, tire, etc.”). The Greek is not certain, maybe
from Celtic or if that seems implausible not Indo European.

[3] While I don't like anyone prescribing as if they were they majesty, I
still dislike the descriptive approach that labels anything as correct that
randomly comes up in the mash up of dialects. I'm especially weary of
misunderstandings becoming fashionable.

~~~
chewxy
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Sandwich](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Sandwich)

~~~
posterboy
I'd still hold that the name stuck because it was at least a funny play of
words and probably way older than the earl.

~~~
posterboy
the word "send" doesn't seem to have changed much; Meant travel, journey.
Sandwich was a landing site for ships, roman beach head and all. So sandwich
was kind of ... a postoffice? traveler's office? Just a marketplace and
harbour? I mean, compare Stralsunt and tell me that's named for being built on
sunt, err I mean sand.

On the other hand, the look and feel of hardtack (which cannot be Tolkiens
_waybread_ if that's brown on the outside and creamy on the inside) and
zwieback pretty much reminds of sand. And they might sell it to ships leaving
port. That doesn't quite figure with how we know a sandwhich today, but sure
enough, there are other roots that can derive "sand-".

At any rate, placenames lend much better and hence more often to food names.
And placenames in turn have often been related to milling and possibly mill-
derivatives; to biblical proportions--cf. Bethlehem--which, again, may mean
that bread words overlap with more figurative meanings; compare "sound"
(healthy), from PIE reconstruction *swent-~sunt- (vigor); Then compare vigor
and -wich ... Townsville might sound redundant, but there it is.

------
gmoore
I love it!

------
Papirola
what about pretzels?

------
the_cat_kittles
reading these comments is weird. i interpret this page as a kind of satire of
a modern pretentious analytical techie orientation that hubristically "solves"
things by creating some alluringly simple model and ignoring all the ways it
doesn't work. it adopts the mores and tone of a modern tech talk, and presents
its idiotic results with a straight face. so its super funny. a little less
funny when you have to explain it to people. people who are taking this at
face value- really?

------
phkahler
While I can appreciate the fun factor, I hope this is not a turning point
where HN becomes like Reddit. Get this off the front page please.

~~~
pesfandiar
It seems the distinguishing feature of the joke is that it has its own domain
name.

~~~
posterboy
The problem is one of significance to machine learning, I believe. 6 DoF for
the classification of food within the domain of dough products is ...
seemingly too little.

------
droopybuns
These kinds of sites give me anxiety.

It isn’t good to see large communities of humans burning mental calories to
come to the same set of conclusions (I’m on team sandwich because $REASON |
I’m on team taco because $REASON). It is a mental D.o.s. directed towards
humans that tend towards herding.

~~~
davidkuhta
Choose team calzone then, the comfort of a wall on all sides may help with the
anxiety.

