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Hand Pies vs Sandwiches... getting warmer?


1 Cor 13. "... if I have not love... "

Every Sunday I make lunches for the work week. I do this in such a way that I package all of the lunch elements so that it's pretty fast to put a lunch together in my lunch box the night before the following day. A bag of grapes, tomatoes, cheese and usually carrots. A bag of nuts and raisins, maybe some other snack mix thing. A few fruits, including a banana. And, the last item to go in is whatever the "main" is. Usually a burrito or some kind of leftover. But today I threw in a PB&J sandwich. It got me thinking about hand pies; I had seen a documentary featuring a Southern chef who was fascinated with them for a time and she gave a history. I think she explored their Latin American roots to a large extent, because that's what made it up to Mississippi from tomales and such. Not exactly sure on that. What I did give pause to as I was prepping was the difference between a sandwich and a hand pie, and what that might say about culture. 

A sandwich is a very utilitarian thing. It can be made hearty by layering on meats and using hearty breads and other fixings, but it wouldn't be typified as a symbol of love; at least not in the same way that a hand pie would... or at least not to me. If a wife had made you a sandwich or a hand pie, which would you rather get? I can see that answers would vary to that question... so, to make my point, I think I will have to dig further for objectivity to prove what my inchoate mind perceives. 

Think of a sandwich. Every element of the sandwich is cold. Each component is layered and the parallelism is near to perfect, bookended as the sandwich is by the evenly sliced bread. It is, in fact, an item of beauty. It speaks of efficiency, of preserved componentry prepared for the near express purpose of being used in a sandwich. I most appreciate them when I have nothing to throw faster in a lunch bag. I can make one in a flash, and I will definitely enjoy it tomorrow! 

The closest I get to hand pies is frozen burritos. For me, they are faster than sandwiches, but perhaps they persuade my unconscious mind of something better. The clearest differentiator between a sandwich and a hand pie is heat! You can, of course, heat a sandwich, but that seems to be an after thought, a procedure to add the loving process built into the preparation of a hand pie. But think of other beneficial aspects. They are rolled, or pressed together, wrapping the contents. They have a milieu of things inside, whatever can be mostly soft, and is preserved, or stove prepped. They can be eaten cold, but they are best eaten hot. They require you to associate with warmth. Love!

Hand pies are not as fast!

Which do I prefer? 

The efficiency of a sandwich...

or...

The warmth of the hand pie.   

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