Is Breakfast Pizza a Kind of Breakfast Sandwich?
I use my extremely limited social media following to investigate.
Despite knowing nothing about food other than that I enjoy it, I committed to a portion of this newsletter being food-adjacent. Holding me to that promise, one of TWTS’s original subscribers, my friend Anne, offered this critical question for my review:
As a lover of savory breakfast foods, and also someone who was running out of ideas for the newsletter, I decided that there’s no time like the present to investigate this question fully. Is this food, which is undoubtedly a pizza, possibly also a breakfast sandwich? Dear reader, let’s investigate together.
Opening Facts
According to Pizza Magazine, a magazine I was delighted to find out exists, breakfast pizza’s origins are murky; however, a Pennsylvania woman named Marietta John claims it as her own invention, in roughly the mid-1990s. While breakfast pizza’s recency pales in comparison to the rich history of the breakfast sandwich, whose origins lie in American westward expansion, they, regardless, share core similarities:
First, both rely on a carb vessel for us dummies to shovel hearty foods into our mouths as quickly as possible— the bread of the sandwich, and the dough of the pizza.
Second, both are, theoretically, portable. While a pizza slice is arguably a little bit more difficult to walk around and eat, it is still more convenient to travel with than your standard Denny’s Grand Slam. And, if you’re a pizza-folder, that makes a slice of breakfast pizza even more on-the-go — you’ve essentially made yourself a sandwich, in that case.
Last but not least, both contain the classic elements of a breakfast sandwich: egg, meat, and cheese. The additional accoutrements (veggies, aiolis, whatever) are, in my opinion, optional for both, as long as they contain the same core elements.
Based on this, I saw the value in Anne’s question, and felt it needed to be brought to the people of Twitter and Instagram for further dissection and analysis.
The Survey
On Twitter, I utilized a simple poll to bring the question to the floor, whereas on Instagram, I felt that an open-ended question would be more compelling. I also just straight up forgot to put the poll on Instagram, so make of that what you will.
Here’s where we stand at the time of writing:
Just under two-thirds of our sample have said that no, breakfast pizza is not an open-faced breakfast sandwich. Two mutuals responded in abject horror, with one claiming that my controversial food polls put the internet in a “tizzy” (Editor’s Note: I have also run Twitter polls that asked if breakfast burritos are breakfast sandwiches, and if pizza rolls are a kind of dumpling). The other brought up an extremely valid point:
Would every pizza then be considered an open face sandwich? Will we boil all things down to their adjacency to sandwiches? Madness. Bonkers. We cannot go down this road
…interesting, and a point well taken. To say that a breakfast pizza is a form of breakfast sandwich could bring forth a slippery slope. An Instagram mutual reiterated:
I wouldn’t consider [Buffalo chicken finger] pizza related to a [chicken] finger sub
If you put chicken fingers and cheese on a pizza, is that an open-faced chicken finger sub? No, probably not, despite it having the same elements. Chicken finger pizza is chicken finger pizza. By that logic, a breakfast pizza would not be a form of open-faced breakfast sandwich, despite having the same core elements. However, if you consider a breakfast pizza to be the crossroads where breakfast sandwiches and pizza intersect, perhaps you could make an exception to the rule. Pizza and sandwiches are separate entities, until you get to the breakfast pizza, which is the center of the Venn diagram connecting the two foods.
Instagram respondents also carefully considered the role of the pizza dough as bread. One respondent made the clear argument that the dough operates as the bread, with the sandwich components placed on top. However, someone made the counterpoint that a breakfast sandwich is assembled on already-baked bread, whereas the bread of a breakfast pizza is raw and must be cooked. This likely matters if you feel that the baked-ness of the bread affects a breakfast pizza’s sandwich-like qualities.
Despite the small sample size, both sides made compelling arguments. This has left me with a lot to reflect upon, even at the time of writing. But, alas, I cannot fence-sit on this issue. As the conductor of this impromptu survey, and ponderer of this question, I must now reveal my own, informed opinion.
Conclusion
Based on the evidence, as well as my own meditations, I must agree with the majority: breakfast pizzas are NOT open-faced breakfast sandwiches. The raw dough vs. baked roll/bagel argument is certainly compelling, as is the logical slippery slope, but I also respect those who see the clear similarities between the two morning meals and said logic be damned.
I must admit, though, that the tipping point for me was not even mentioned once in the survey, but one I feel that we all need to hear: breakfast sandwich materials are not chopped up like pizza toppings. Your scrambled eggs are formed. Your bacon is in larger slices. Your breakfast sausage is not crumbled throughout the sandwich. Sandwiches are meant to be convenient, and largely, consumed with its elements whole instead of shredded/diced super tiny. Because of this, I find that breakfast pizza lacks the true convenience factor that a breakfast sandwich has.
So I say, leave breakfast pizza as a kind of specialty pizza, and breakfast sandwiches out of the pizza discourse. Both have their places in our hellscape society, and, while I love the spirit of the question, they each should remain separate entrees and not considered part of the same food lineage.