Hey, Po' Boy, Meet Some Real Heroes
The rest of the country may clamor for po' boys and hoagies, grinders, subs, wedges or torpedoes, but New York knows what really constitutes a gigantic sandwich, and what raises the hero above those pretenders; what makes it gastronomic royalty.ReUrp!
Let there be no misunderstanding by those who have never ventured to New York, or by those who have come lately, or by those who diet. The hero is a sandwich of cured Italian meats. These are layered into a forearm's length of fresh crusty bread, often with a few slices of Italian cheese and a condiment or two atop them — pepperoncini, yes; roasted peppers, yes; mayonnaise, an emphatic no. Also, perhaps, a splash of vinegar, certainly a drizzle of olive oil. Some ground pepper, a sprinkle of salt. But no more. No sun-dried tomatoes sully the interior of a true hero, no pesto, no Brie, no fancy pants ingredients at all.
A hero, at least for today, is cold. (We will return to the subject of hot heroes — your pillowy meatball sandwiches, mighty chicken parmigianas, lengths of hot sausage and pepper — at a later date.) It is made by Italians, most often, in family run stores, and is usually served wrapped in paper, to eat outside somewhere. A hero has working class origins. It is lunch in tubular form.
In 1936, Clementine Paddleford, the legendary food writer on The New York Herald Tribune, unwittingly named the sandwich, saying, "You'd have to be a hero to finish one."
I have disproved that theory more than 100 times in the last month.
What's with all this food stuff? I must have been spending too much time over at Little Tiny Lies.
