If you order a cheeseburger and scrape off the cheese and eat it, you have not just eaten a cheese burger. You ate a hamburger.

I've ordered a pattieless Whopper in Burger King. It's a hamburger roll with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickle, onion, and mustard.

But, you're right. If you order a cheeseburger and don't eat the cheese, you've eaten a hamburger. However, if you order a cheeseburger and don't eat the onions, you've still eaten a cheeseburger.

So if you buy a muffaleta and only eat the olives, you've eaten a muffy?

Well, you've eaten a really specific part of a muffaleta.

Mostly you've blown an awful lot of cash just to eat olive salad.

If you order a cheeseburger and scrape off the cheese and eat it, you have not just eaten a cheese burger. You ate a hamburger.

If you order a cheeseburger and scrape off the cheese, when there was a perfectly good hamburger on the menu -- a) you're a whacko. b) You'll probably have a hard time scraping it all off, thus leaving some behind, thus making what you ate not really a hamberger any more than it was a cheeseburger, and since you've now entered some weird food anomaly zone, the best reference is probably to look at the receipt, which will say CHEESEBURGER on it.

you've eaten a really specific part of a muffaleta.

But to go by your previous post, you've eaten a muffaletta. If you lose just the olives, have you eaten a muffaletta or part of one?

If you lose just the olives, have you eaten a muffaletta or part of one?

What does it say on the receipt?

What does it say on the receipt?

Same thing as if you lose everything but the olives.

Thank you, Jen. Will no one think of me?

OK, forget the olives. Say I order a muffaleta without the meat. Just the cheese and olives and whatever else usually goes on it, on the muffaletta bread. Is that a muffaletta? What if someone orders it with all the usual stuff, but without the cheese? What if you add mustard? What about if you put all the usual muffaletta fillings, including the olive salad, onto a bulke roll? What about a sub roll?

If you order a cheeseburger and scrape off the cheese, when there was a perfectly good hamburger on the menu -- a) you're a whacko. b) You'll probably have a hard time scraping it all off, thus leaving some behind, thus making what you ate not really a hamberger any more than it was a cheeseburger, and since you've now entered some weird food anomaly zone, the best reference is probably to look at the receipt, which will say CHEESEBURGER on it.

This is the most lame rebuttal I have seen this quarter.

In two parts:

If you order a cheeseburger and scrape off the cheese, when there was a perfectly good hamburger on the menu -- a) you're a whacko.

Ditto for Muffaletta eaters who scrape off the olives. Just order an Italian sub, already.

b) You'll probably have a hard time scraping it all off, thus leaving some behind, thus making what you ate not really a hamberger any more than it was a cheeseburger, and since you've now entered some weird food anomaly zone, the best reference is probably to look at the receipt, which will say CHEESEBURGER on it.

You're going to argue trace elements of cheese? Dude, even by sixth grade trying to make your case by trace elements is to concede the entire argument. Trace elements only count in chemistry and criminal forensics .

Ditto for Muffaletta eaters who scrape off the olives. Just order an Italian sub, already.

But an Italian sub isn't the same thing as an oliveless muffaletta. The meat and the cheese can be the same, but everything else is different.

I would have thought there's SOME minimum requirement. Sean and Deb, NSM.

Mystified by this, sweetie, but I'll try to clarify. In fact, I'll even do it in terms of that weird math stuff everyone seems to like.

I think that if you are ordering a specific sandwich, one that is comprised of two slices of bread and, say, five other ingredients plus condiments? You can ask them to hold one ingredient and you will still have the majority a) between your two slices of bread, b) ground to paste between your molars, c) heading down into the pool of churning acid that will reduce it to its most basic components (memo to Hec, the Sandwich Snob: it all goes there in the end), and d) is eventually sent around your body while the waste is eliminated.

If, however, you keep one of the five ingredients, and give someone else the rest, still between bread?

They've eaten your muufaletta. You've eaten a bunch of olives.

Damned if I know why that doesn't qualify as a minimum requirement.