Weather the pre-baseball doldrums with lots and lots of cheese.

The candidate: Kentucky Hot Brown from Bar Americain, 52nd street between 6th and 7th in Manhattan. Only available at lunch.

The construction: One thick-cut slice of bread topped with turkey, some sort of creamy cheese sauce (Mornay?), melted cheese, bacon and tomato.

Arguments for sandwich-hood: It’s on bread. The Wikipedia page for Hot Brown calls it a sandwich.

Counter-arguments: Since there’s only one slice of bread, nothing is properly sandwiched here. Also, it’s decidedly a knife-and-fork type dish, far from the convenient and portable food concept envisioned by ol’ John Montagu.

How it tastes: Amazing.

Allow me a brief aside: Some significant percentage of the members of my generation, I am certain, have spent some significant percentage of their waking hours sharing, discussing and giggling over a certain set of silly names given to rumored but probably infrequently performed lewd acts. For me, those conversations occurred during slow times at the deli: my co-workers and I tried constantly to one-up each other with the most bizarre and creatively titled bedroom behaviors that we had heard of or could make up ourselves.

And for anyone who has resorted to such discussions to stave off boredom — and, like I said, there are lots of us — I think it is impossible to hear the term “Kentucky Hot Brown” without considering the many ways in which it sounds like some particularly gross sex act: Its nomenclature so perfectly fits the typical place/descriptor convention of that weird set of jokes. But, of course, people eat it anyway.

After this paragraph, I want you to stop reading for a few minutes. First, think of several of the filthiest, most outrageously vile words and concepts you can imagine, then come up with some way to combine them into a singular phrase. Take your time with it and probe the darkest places of your imagination; get creative. It can incorporate the universally disgusting — say, I don’t know, bloody rat mucus — or something more personal if you need — grandma belches. Play around with it in your head until you’re satisfied you have something so viscerally repulsive that just the thought of it would make Chuck Palahniuk vomit, then write it down or type it out. Email it to me if you have to. It’s important that you see what it looks like in print.

Once you’ve done that, imagine going into a restaurant, opening up the menu and seeing that same term — the most revolting thing you could imagine — listed under “entrees.” You work up the courage to say it out loud and ask the waiter what it is, and he tells you it’s a slice of bread topped with turkey, cheese sauce, melted cheese and bacon.

I can’t speak for you, but I’m going to order it anyway. Hell, the waiter could stand over me while I ate it repeating its sickening name every time I took a bite and I’d still enjoy the hell out of it. That’s the thing about tons of cheese and bacon.

Point is — and the underlying problem with this whole exercise, really — is that it doesn’t matter what you call something as long as it’s delicious.

And this Kentucky Hot Brown is certainly that: The turkey is moist and steamy hot. The cheese sauce is rich and plentiful, and reminiscent of the earthy, wine-y flavor of a good cheese fondue. The melted cheese is melted cheese, plus it works to contain the cheese sauce on top of the bread and turkey. And the bacon is crisp and perfectly prepared. Do a strong enough job slicing this thing up and distributing the sweet, juicy tomato and you get an outrageous array of flavors and textures in every forkful. It’s just good.

The verdict: But it is not in any way a sandwich. The Wikipedia can call it whatever it wants, but nothing about eating this feels like a traditional sandwich-eating experience. Not only can you not pick this thing up, but the turkey and cheese are piled on thick enough that it’s sort of a chore to eat with a fork and butter knife. It’s a big, delicious, sloppy mess with not even a pretense toward portability. I move that the term “open-faced sandwich” is an oxymoron.

What it’s worth: The Kentucky Hot Brown at Bar Americain is $18 — a bit steeper than most of the meals discussed here, but not if you’ve got a friend in your industry with an expense account willing to chalk it up as a business lunch. And it is much appreciated.