What Makes A Hamburger Different From A Sandwich? The Answer Might Depend On Where You Live

For years, the internet was torn apart over the "Is a hot dog a sandwich?" debate (even Anthony Bourdain had his opinion), but asking the same of a hamburger should be less of a controversial question. The semantic argument that made hot dogs controversial was whether the open-topped split bun made a hot dog a sandwich or something different, but hamburgers are (almost) always made between two separate buns.

That clearly fulfills Merriam-Webster's definition of a sandwich, which reads, "Two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between." Not just deli meat, not even just meat, but a "filling" between two slices of bread: that's what a hamburger in the U.S. is. It's just a subcategory of sandwich. But what makes a burger a distinct category becomes more complicated depending on where you are.

It turns out that other countries have a more expansive definition not of hamburger but of the whole term "burger." In English-speaking countries outside of the U.S., a burger is defined not by the filling, but by the usage of burger buns instead of sliced bread. That means what we call a chicken sandwich, they call a chicken burger. So, a hamburger is distinguished by both its meat and its style of bread. But in America, the bread is infinitely less important. Nobody would ever call sliced deli turkey on a bun a turkey burger.

In the U.S., the term "sandwich" is all-encompassing. In fact, by law, many states and the federal government define it as meat between two slices of bread. The term hamburger often refers to the meat specifically: a ground beef patty. This is because hamburgers evolved from German immigrants' "Hamburg-style" ground steaks, which became known as the classic Salisbury steak. That evolved into the hamburger as we know it today in the late 19th century, when people began putting Hamburg-style patties on bread. At first these were called "hamburger steak sandwiches," but eventually the name was simplified.

You can see this meat-based thinking in how we talk about other types of sandwiches. Ground bison between bread (and even ground salmon) is deemed a burger because of the form that the meat takes. Again, you would never call a whole piece of grilled salmon a burger just because you eat it on a bun. The one complicating factor is patty melts, where changing the type of bread does change the name. Some will say patty melts are a type of hamburger, showing it's the meat that matters, while others will claim it's a sandwich. The cop-out? It's in a category all its own, but it is still mostly defined by the meat, because you wouldn't call a cooked ham and melted cheese a type of patty melt. So, what makes a hamburger different? If you live in the U.S., it's just the ground beef patty.