There is nothing like eating freshly baked pie. Its calm, soup-like texture warms your throat with each memorable bit. You imagine the thin bread bowl like crust cupping the filling inside. You might not use a spoon, and pie might not be a liquid, but it is definitely categorized as a soup… hold up, couldn’t it be classified as a sandwich?

According to 188 of Northmont High School’s staff and students, 66% of them say pie is more of a sandwich than a soup. This is possible because most apple and berry filled pies have a top layer of crust completely encasing the filling. This get’s people thinking, what determines the category of a food?

(Result for, “is pie a soup or sandwich.”)

Having nothing to do with its state of matter, food can either be classified as a soup or a sandwich, but what determines this? According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a sandwich is classified as “two or more cookies, crackers, or slices of cake with something between them.” A sandwich is when two of the same object hold together another object. One example is a card sandwich. This is made when two of the same type of card surround a different type of card, one on the top and one on the bottom.

A soup, however, is very similar. Rather than there being two objects surrounding one, a soup is classified by one object holding another. According to Karsten Strobel, a sophomore at Northmont Highschool, “Basically pizza is a soup. The dough portion of the pizza acts as a bowl, while the tomato sauce is the broth (or the actual soup). Any toppings would just be additives floating in your soup, including cheese. Don’t fold your pizza in half, use a spoon.”

The most difficult food to categorize was definitely a jolly rancher. 53.7% of responders said it is a soup, and 46.3% said is was a sandwich.

If you want to see what other questions were asked, check out this google form! The results, gathered on December 10th, 2021, can be found in this document.