In my childhood brain, the perfect socially acceptable sandwich comprised three ingredients: Wonder bread, baloney, and a thin layer of iridescent yellow mustard whose name was foreign, but whose texture screamed "American". What I got: homemade bread the density of a neutron star with thick crusts that cut the roof of your mouth yet didn't actually manage to stay together and hold the contents in the sandwich. Topped with German mustard that was a dingy yellow and came in a weird mug. Meat was usually cured and bought at its own store (read 'deli') as opposed to that mysterious section of the supermarket where they sell bacon and lunch meat with pasta in it - it was usually shunned 'cause of nitrates. It was in a single thin layer. Cause of expense. This was topped with cheese that could not be pronounced in English. Garnish with green weedy stuff that came out of the ground wherever my mother would find it or big chunks of green pepper.
I could probably sell that sandwich at a posh bistro or nature cafe for 15$ and say something pithy about wild-sourced greens and artisan bread, but as a child who wanted to "fit in" I yearned for iceberg lettuce and an anemic slice of tomato. Apparently those were "bad foods" I might have died if I ate them. Hot dog days at school were great. Then there was the egalitarian sameness of meat in tube form that had been heated up in dubious looking greasy water and slapped on a bun with mustard of the proper nuclear colour.
I shouldn't complain though. Many people who grew up eating the 3-ingredient sandwich are fussy eaters and terrified by anything that smacks of exotic. I certainly can't claim that problem.
This sandwich from Wikipedia is too fancy. It has lettuce in and the mustard is all wrong.
