This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Thoughts on the Cube Rule of Food

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

"A taco's a sandwich?!  A f@#$in' burrito's a sandwich?!" - Jason Kelce Someone took the question of whether or not hot dogs and Pop Tarts are sandwiches and made up something called the Cube Rule of Food.  Mike takes a look at this thing so you don't have to. cuberule.com

Hi, I'm Mike Chernivsky, and your listen to this podcast is Un Called For. All right, everybody, we're going to have some fun today. So, so as you probably know from season seven, that I've recently become a fan of the Kelsey Brothers podcast, New Heights. and one of the first clips I came across was a big guy a really dumb question

how many holes is a straw have for the record Travis is team one hole that the whole straw is itself a hole and Jason is team two holes

and with each opening of the straw is a different whole. And this devolts to another dumb question being asked.

Is a hot dog a sandwich? And where's it go from there? It goes, oh, a taco's a sandwich. A fucking burritos a sandwich.

I also came across a video recently and posted to the new heights reddits page about how in the state of new york hot dogs tacos and burritos are now classed as sandwiches and someone sent me this uh link cub rule dot com where it features the cube rule of food identification as seen in the new york times in the washington post so we're going to read this and I'm going as usual when I read stuff like this I will pause if I have a comment so first we ask our hot dog sandwiches yes yes they are yes they

are technically a type of sandwich classic examples they give of sandwiches are grilled cheese, pepper brown with jelly, and Rubens. Now, I had to look up Rubens because that's not a sandwich I usually have for myself. And I'm going to look it up again. And a Rubin usually has corned beef, sauerkraut, which I don't like, Swiss cheese, ride bread, and on a thousand island or Russian. dressing and of course

Thousan Island will come into Relevance letter because as we all know Thousand Island is what Big Mac special sauce is but the hot dog is

am I a sandwich again yeah yeah technically hot dog is sandwich New York says yes as in the stay in New York and he goes a quick screenshots, actually two screenshots of

a document by the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Quote, sandwiches are generally subject to sales tax. This Bolton explains what is considered a sandwich for sale tax purposes includes things like

euros, hamburgers, on buns, rolls, etc. Heroes, hoagies, torpedoes, grinders, submarines, and other such sandwiches, hot dogs and sausages on buns, rolls, etc. Melt sandwiches,

open-faced sandwiches, pinini sandwiches, rubin sandwiches, and raps and pita sandwiches. And then a tweet from Ellen McGrody at Caddybat.

Okay. Listen, the sandwich discourse is played out. We need to have a new discussion. Pop-tarts are kind of ravioli. Pop-tarts are a jam-filled breakfast impanata. So the wars began, and, yeah, pop-tarts are a type of ravioli. Pop-tarts shot back. Excuse me, ravioli are a type of pop-tart.

and again pop tarts are impanadas so they so the sandwich alignments charts tries to bring order which is a three-by-three grid with ingredients as the top axis and the x-axis and y-axis is structure so we have ingredient purists so they must have classic sandwich toppings like meat cheese lettuce condiments and like ingredient neutral can contain a broader scope of savory ingredients ingredients rebel can contain literally any food products sandwiched together structure so we have structure purists a sandwich shape which is two pieces of bread or baked product with toppings in between same structure neutral the container must be on either side of the

toppings but not necessarily two separate pieces or as it allows for hot dog buns and structure rebel can contain any food involved in any way by containing food which allows for tortillas so hardline traditionalists purest purist a BLT is a sandwich that we have a structural purest ingredient neutral a chip butsy is a sandwich this is a sandwich

we don't really see here in America but if you must know a chip buttie is a it's a sandwich and it's filled with fries

as we would call them in the states or chips as they are known in England then we have structural purist ingredients rebel ice cream between waffles is a sandwich okay so an ice cream sandwich is a ingredient rebel structurally neutral but ingredient purists a sub is a sandwich and then true neutral ingredient

Neutral Structurally neutral That's your hot dogs Being a sandwich Structurally neutral But ingredient rebel An ice cream taco Is a sandwich

So So yes Chesa Taco is a sandwich Now we have A structural Rebell Ingredient Purist

The Chicken Wrap Is Sandwich Strudgeonly rebel but ingredient neutral There's your fucking burrito The sandwich And then radical Sandwich Anarchy

A Pop-Tart is a sandwich But only chaos ensued So tag yourself I'm sandwich anarchy Actually your definition of bread is inconsistent who did this from have you seen this at Hodgeman I will fight anyone who thinks a pop chart is a sandwich and my wife left me because I think a fucking burrito is a sandwich then spake the holy prophet phosphatized

another tweet and username is in a Nihungo but well just read the tweet are you satisfied with current page regarding what is or is not a sandwich

you should try using the cube rule for identifying what you're eating blessing us with the grand unified theory of food identification the cube rule so for identifying dishes based on starch locations so it's a cube three-dimensional shape

if it is just if the and clearly it's just about where the starch is located on the food so so for one plane a starch just flat that is considered toast uh two that are parallel to each other that is a sandwich three you have the parallel planes but they're joined by one per particular plane to form sort of a use shape that is a taco um If you have the taco shape and put yet another perpendicular plane parallel to that odd plane,

this form of four sides, is considered sushi. I have thoughts about that. You take the sushi shape and put yet another plane and one end of the giant hole that you've now created. That now becomes a super salad with a bread bowl. And close up, you got all six planes covered and so sort of starches now counts on. So identifying any food purely by the location of structural starch. One plane. Toast.

Popular examples. Pizza. nigeri sushi. That's when you have the rice ball and you put the fish on top. So, yeah, right off the bats, they're breaking their own rule. Because here's what? Here's the problem I have with the sushi characteristic. Sushi in Japanese.

specifically refers to rice and how the rice is prepared and sushi rice has to be prepared a specific way you have to have a rice cooker

you have to have sushi vinegar and it has to be really sticky stuff in order for it to be called sushi so sushi technically speaking is just the rice. All right. And here we have an example of sushi, but it's considered toast. That

makes no goddamn sense. And I also have a pumpkin pie size, which is a bent toast. So under this, under this definition, an open face sandwich is toast. All right. Open face sandwich, of course you just add the one size of bread and then you put whatever you want on top of it my favorite example of such a

a sandwich you can find at the market grill at Ivy they have on their menu a mac and cheese burger which you can

sell the burger for chicken perfectly all right but it's just a single slice of bread you put your burger or chicken pan on any tap with mac and cheese

so under this under this guy this rule's definition that's toast come on the that two planes

parallel to each other that's the sandwich and their popular examples are non-folded casadias Victorian sponge cake and toast

What the fuck How is just one slice of bread toast He puts another slice of bread And you still call toast I agree I agree

That is ridiculous that's ridiculous yeah the three-sided's playing the taco the taco popular examples of a taco a hot dog is considered a taco a sub sandwich where they don't slice the bread all the way through is considered a taco a slice a pear with the crust on top is considered it would be considered a taco on its side

all right now we get to the four-sided the sushi and not all and uh as we clear us out with the nigiri

not all sushi is going to come in maki roll form but uh what they consider sushi well if they consider sushi well enchiladas are sushi okay I'll get that one a slight pass because if you've ever ordered enchiladas at a nice Mexican restaurant they usually have a side of dirty rice of Spanish rice which is not the same as sushi rice but okay pigs in blankets you know take the hot dog and wrap it in a croissant that that's considered

sushi and oh Bill O'Reilly will love this one falafel wrap is considered sushi and I'm gonna take the other hand with the flophil thing right I'm ridiculous number five the bread bowl example they now call keesh this one all right so what are some examples they have for a keesh well cheesecake is considered a keish soup and bread bowl is considered a keesh or salad and bread bowl even would be considered quiche which Benara does a great job with that

and oh Bill O'Reilly will have this one too a falafel pita and once again take the other hand with the falafel thing and And other examples of a quiche. Well, I just mentioned salad in the breadmole.

A key lime pie would be considered a keesh. Or is it? Kiwi lime. Kiwi? Kiwi. I'm a largest kiwi? I'm not, but, but, uh, yeah. Got through our friends, too, again, once in a while.

And, uh, Chicago D dish pizza is considered a keesh. uh i don't know and now it's a calzone all six sides of the plane covering some sort of starch that's where you get your uh fucking burritos or a calzone a corn dog is a calzone which makes very little sense uh and a whole pie the whole pie before he cut it up

is considered a calzone but provided that there's a pie with a dough top like an apple pie for example

bonus rounds dumplings are calzone pop tarts are cows and uncrustables which the brothers CalC claim are

impanadas our class as calzones here so so impanadas are calzones is that where we're getting at

here additional cube rulings it gets even more ridiculous from here if it has zero bread in it is considered a salad so examples of a salad they have listed here are steak

steak is not salad steak is the exact opposite of a salad unless it's a vegan steak and then you could probably consider that a salad but if it comes from an animal it ain't a salad

I'm sorry mashed potatoes are considered a salad according to this what not this car you said this was some of the with starches and potatoes are considered a form of starch

so what the fuck are you calling them a salad for? Oh yeah and Flan is considered a salad or a pudding

is considered a salad bonus rounds a turducken with sausage stuffing if you don't know what Turducken is you must You're probably not a football fan

Because John Madden He used to talk about this all the time around Thanksgiving A Turducken is a chicken stuffed inside of a duck stuffed inside of a turkey And it's all cooked together Madden popularized This idea

I think Babbage has actually posted a video on making this so let's check that uh chocolate is considered a salad and soup soup is considered a salad a wet salad so when you do about chicken noodle soup which i'm pretty sure noodles are made of starchy material ridiculous then we have a cake so cake is the

sandwich but now we have a third layer so so what gets classifies as cake here well lasagna okay I could see

lasagna being the type of a cake a stack of flapjacks are considered cake. Well, that's the thing about pancakes is that they do have a cakey texture to them.

But yeah, when I said Big Mac earlier, yeah, these idiots think a Big Mac is a cake. You have your two all beef patties, your special sauce, your last cheese, pickles, onions

on the sesame seed bun. But of course, the burger patties are separated by a layer of bun. All right. So it goes, yeah, bun, burger bun,

burger bun. With all the stuff thrown in. And that's considered cake. Are you effing Kamey? If this is cake, then again, I'm going to quote friends here

or reference it, then Rachel's trifle should be considered cake with meat in it. It tastes like feet. And this one, they show a an empty

cube with a small cube inside of it. And again, there's little bits of starchy stuff within the dish. They classes as nachos uh come on nacha we all know what nachos are at this point i hope we all know what nachos are at this point you know tortilla chips covered in uh mostly usually cheese but i personally like them with some sort of meat whether it be grand beef or uh treasure

or a chicken and i like mine with pico de gallo and uh some other salsa but what are they classifying as nachos here they're classifying salad as nachos specifically salad with croutons is considered nachos

to these people Lucky Charms the yeah the kid's cereal with all the marshmallows that's considered nachos Putin is considered nachos

well Putin is closer to being nachos than either of these other things is if you're not in the know Poutine it's Canadian dish

made with fries and they pour gravy and cheese curds into on top of the fries so that's a lot closer in nachos and the other two examples they have here

bonus round also considered nachos Fried noodles are considered nachos. What? Noodles are noodles. Cuscoos are considered nachos. And classified as wet nachos is ramen. And as I know,

ramen of sushi or taernakiya, you know what I say. Translation is If ramen doesn't bring you ratings, bring out the dogs. So, muffins or other blocks of starch are type 1 toast in raw unslised form. Rice. You're free to interpret the nature of rice however you wish. Well, didn't I just do that a few minutes ago saying that sushi is a very specific type of rice? Vanilla soy latte

Three bean wet salad And it has a soup across that So three beans soup would cross that wet salad Okay Valourine beans, soybeans, uh, coffee beans. Humans. It's defined by noted food Craig, Soleil Ho.

Humans are just ravioli. Uh, thank you. Yeah, this is fucking ridiculous. this is just ridiculous all in good humor I hope

but no fucking way are is that good classification of what is a sandwich and what isn't and certainly their definition for nachos makes no fucking sense at all

so Chey and Parmesan is that a fucking nachos uh pork chops that's a fucking salad

oh okay all good fun but whoever I made this need to go the fuck back to school uh

you're on my well I think that's going to do it for this edition. I hope y'all had as much fun as I had ridiculing this stuff. But if you want to look it up for yourself, it is cube rule.com. It's c-u-b-e-r-u-l-e-com. And, well, I don't know. next time this podcast.

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