What your sandwich says about you

Dan Gentile
Dan Gentile

You can tell a lot about a person from their eating and drinking decisions. For instance, that person must be hungry and thirsty! Poor guy!

But in addition to levels of satiation, what you choose to eat says a lot about your personality. If a cocktail glass is a window into the soul, then the blank slate between two pieces of bread is a screen door to the heart, or in some cases, a dead-bolted artery. Read on to see what your sandwich says about you, and scroll down to the comments to let us know if you like caprese but somehow didn't study abroad in Italy.

Philly cheesesteak
Dan Gentile

Cheesesteak

You traveled through Philadelphia once and ate at a cheesesteak place that wasn't one of the famous ones, but was still pretty good and serves as your barometer for all future cheesesteaks. You have since adopted the attitude that there are no good cheesesteaks outside of Philly, which really pisses off your friend who owns a cheesesteak restaurant. 


Peanut butter and jelly

Every time you open a jar of peanut butter you write your initials in the top layer of virgin JIF with a knife because your childhood babysitter said it was good luck, and were later shocked to learn that she went to prison. You will have a long conversation with anyone who will listen about how much peanut butter you eat, which would be an unhealthy amount if it weren't so good for you. Also, you are willing to pretend things have a higher nutritional value that they actually do.


Grilled cheese

Some time in the last 10 years you owned a pair of Velcro shoes and still own them despite having moved like five times since then and gotten rid of most of your old clothes. When ordering at restaurants, you usually don't consider the cost breakdown of the ingredients.


Banh mi

You take great pleasure in anything that costs less than $5, and you are very vocal about it. You've often taken friends to Vietnamese restaurants and helped "pop their banh mi cherry" without realizing how unappetizing that phrase is. You are exceedingly proud of yourself for knowing it's spelled b-a-n-h and not b-a-h-n -- though sometimes you forget and have to Google it.

ham and cheese
Dan Gentile

Ham and cheese

You graduated from peanut butter & jelly and never graduated from anything else. You have several times engaged in complex trades for various lunch items with your office mates.


Italian hero

You are probably a hard person to buy Christmas presents for, because you have everything you need, right there on that hoagie. That Fitbit that your cousin gave you? It was returned for store credit. You used that credit to buy more meat and oil.


The Elvis

You own at least one button-down shirt with a loud print that you break out on Saturdays. It's your Saturday shirt. Most of Sunday you don't wear a shirt at all. You know most of the words to "Blue Suede Shoes", but are kind of confused about who actually wears suede. Your first wife remains your favorite wife, but #4 is looking promising.


Pastrami on rye

You enjoy non-fiction books. If you're over the age of 40, at least one of these books is about the history of conflict in the Middle East. If you're under 40, most of your books have been featured on The Daily Show. Your mom still asks when you're going to settle down with a nice girl.

tuna sandwich
Dan Gentile

Tuna salad

You don't care what others think about how you smell, and are often attacked by feral cats while walking down streets.


Tuna melt

You don't care what others think about how you smell, and have adopted several feral cats. The scent of your apartment is unbearable to everyone except you and your future spouse, who you have yet to meet. She likely doesn't exist.


Lobster roll

You're known to drop the phrase "live a little" on a regular basis, and adopt a slight New England accent when ordering certain beers and seafood items, despite being from Indiana. You are not very confident in regional lobster roll distinctions, but can usually fake it around your friends by picking up on context clues from your server. You have attended at least one Hall & Oates concert, and own a pair of boat shoes.


Bologna

You are probably a child. Your first name might be Oscar. And nobody trades with you at lunch: not because they don't like bologna, but because you peed your pants in class last week, and you suck at kickball.

cuban
Dan Gentile

The Cuban

When you were a child, your grandparents lived in Florida, but your parents would never let you go visit them. You'd receive postcards from them on a regular basis talking about the great food and sun and fun, but every time Spring break rolled around, they would conveniently be out of town. You began eating Cubans because they reminded you of them. Later, it was revealed that they didn't live in Florida at all. In reality Gramps was in prison and Grams was in a nursing home three blocks from your home. But damned if that ham doesn't make everything better.
 

Po'boys

You once attended Mardi Gras, or at least have a friend who did, and you used to TiVo the infomercial for Girls Gone Wild in college. You have perpetrated observational humor regarding the high price of po'boys at least four times.


Falafel

You don't really like sandwiches.


Torta

You don't really like tacos.

blt sandwich
Dan Gentile

B.L.T.

Your freshman year in college wasn't quite as eye-opening as everyone else's, but you made some pretty solid friends in the Entrepreneurship Club that you still email sometimes to "spit-ball" on some new "ventures" that never really seem "scaleable". Your credit score is in shambles.


Chicken salad

Your friends know that you can count on them if something ever really goes wrong, like when Christie Turnot got rear-ended in a totally non-sexual way and had to wait like TWO HOURS for AAA to come, so you picked her up and you bought her a Subway sandwich to cheer her up. You've wanted to rear-end Christie Turnot in a totally sexual way.


Meatball sub

You occasionally chew with your mouth open and accidentally bite the inside of your lip and end up with a really bad canker sore that only goes away if you put salt on it like three days in a row, which is really painful but surprisingly effective. You once kissed a girl before the salt treatment really did its job and considered explaining that the sore wasn't herpes or anything, but you didn't.

caprese
Dan Gentile

Caprese

You once studied abroad in Italy, and are either a vegetarian or strangely not very into prosciutto. Ordering grilled cheese is just a little too low-brow for your tastes, but you will make it at home late at night and not tell anyone. You will put sliced tomato and dried basil on it, take a photo, and Instagram it under #caprese. It's not the last lie you will tell tonight.


Dagwood

Many of your personal life decisions and wardrobe choices could be described as cartoon-like. Also, you are morbidly obese, but blame your glands.


Egg salad

You have chronic flatulence, and you pack this sandwich every day so your co-workers just think the smell is your lunch. You actually hate egg salad, but it was either this or a seeing-eye dog, and you decided that pretending to be blind at work was too much trouble.


French dip

When your doctor said you have high blood pressure, you said, "No way, doc", and then didn't tell your significant other about the prognosis. You stockpile the extra au jus "just in case", but never use it. Your refrigerator smells terrible


Dan Gentile is a staff writer on Thrillist's national food and drink team. He sees a little bit of himself in each of these sandwiches, except ones that have mustard on them. Follow him to pretty much any other condiment at @Dannosphere.