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Hoagies, Submarine, Po' Boys,and Dagwood
Source of Recipe
Internet
List of Ingredients
These sandwiches are known by various names depending on where you live in this country. Some of those names include: Submarine, Hoagie, Grinder, Po' Boy, Rocket, Torpedo, Dagwood, Hero, and Italian sandwich. These are king-sized sandwich on a loaf of bread approximately 12 inches long an 3 inches wide, filled with various cold cuts and many different trimmings.
Dagwood Sandwich - It is a multi-layered sandwich with a variety of fillings. Used to denote a sandwich put together so as to attain such a tremendous size and infinite variety of contents as to stun the imagination, sight, and stomach of all but the original maker.
A term that originated in the comic strips in the 1930s after a comic strip character named Dagwood Bumstead. According to the creator of the comic, Murat Bernard “Chic” Young (1901-1973), the only thing that Dagwood could prepare in the kitchen was a mountainous pile of dissimilar leftovers precariously arranged between two slices of bread. Dagwood became know for his huge sandwiches he created on evening forays to the refrigerator.
Hoagie – Hoagies are built-to-order sandwiches filled with meat and cheese, as well as lettuce, tomatoes, and onions, topped off with a dash of oregano-vinegar dressing on an Italian roll. A true Italian Hoagie is made with Italian ham, prosciutto salami, and provolone cheese, along with all the works. It was declared the “Official Sandwich of Philadelphia” in 1992.
The Hoagie was originally created in Philadelphia. There are a number of different versions to how the Hoagie got its name, but no matter what version is right (historians cannot seem to agree on the correct version), all agree that it started in Philadelphia or the towns' suburbs.
(1) The most widely accepted story centers on an area of Philadelphia known as Hog Island, which was home to a shipyard during World War I (1914-1918). The Italian immigrants working there would bring giant sandwiches made with cold cuts, spices, oil, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and peppers for their lunches. These workers were nicknamed “hoggies.” Over the years, the name was attached to the sandwiches, but under a different spelling.
(2) Another version on this story says that workers at Hog Island did bring this type of sandwich for lunch, but it was never called a hoagie. The story goes, that one day an Irish worker, who everyday carried an American cheese sandwich, looked enviously at his co-workers’ lunches and said; “If you wife will make me one of those things, I’ll buy it from you.” The man went home and said to his wife “Tomorrow, make two sandwiches, one for me and one for Hogan,” his co-worker’s name. So everyone started calling the sandwich “hogans,” which eventually go shorten to hoagie.
(3) In 1925, Augustine DiCostanza and his wife, Catherine, opened their grocery store called A. DiCostanza's grocery store in Chester, Pennsylvania. According the family lore, the grocery store stayed open well past midnight to accomodiate the gamblers who held card games at the Palermo's Bar on the same street. According to Augie DiCostanze, granddaughter of Augustine and Catherine:
One summer afternoon back in 1925, one of the men who cut the game deciced to take a break and he walked into the store to get a pack of cigarettes. Mom as cooking the the back kitchen and the aroma penentrated throughtout the store. The aroma apparently whet the man's appetitie and he asked Mom if she would make him a sandwich. "OK, pick out what kind of lunchmeat your want," she said. He looked into the case and with an Itallian hand waving gesture said: "Put everything you have in the case on it." Mom took a long loaf of Vienna bread, sliced it lengthwise and proceeded to put on all of the lunchmeat. . . . "What are you cooking that smells so good?" the hungry gambler asked. "I'm frying sweet and hot peppers," she replied and without asking she put a few pieces of the pepper on the sandwich. He left and an hour later the place was filled with hungry gamlbers asking for a sandwich. Mom sold out of everything that day. It was the beginning of a new creation, soon to become know as the Hoagie.
(4) The last story says that during the Depression (1929-1939), out-of-work Philadelphian Al DePalma went to Hog Island near the naval shipyards to find work. When he saw the workers on lunch bread eating their giant sandwiches, his first thought was, "Those fellas look like a bunch of hogs." Instead of applying for a job at the shipyard, he opened a luncheonette that served these big sandwiches. He listed them on the menu as “hoggies” named for the hogs he saw during that lunch hour.
During the late 1930s, DePalma joined forces with Buccelli’s Bakery and developed the perfect hoagie roll (an eight-inch roll that became the standard for the modern-day hoagie). By World War II during the 1940s, he turned the back room of his restaurant into a hoagie factory to supply sandwiches to workers at the shipyard. DePalma became know as “The King of Hoggies.” At some point after World War II, the “hoggie” became the “hoagie.” It is said that because his customers kept calling them hoagies, he changed the name.
Po' Boy (poo-boy) - The generic name for the standard New Orleans sandwich made with French bread. They are considered a New Orleans institution. Also called poor boy. Always made with French bread, po' boys can be filled with fried oysters, shrimp, fish, soft-shelled crabs, crawfish, roast beef and gravy, roast pork, meatballs, smoked sausage and more. They are served either "dressed" with a full range of condiments (usually mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomatoes) or "undressed" (plain). This sandwich is purely American in its variety of sauces and condiments. It is uniquely New Orleans because the oysters are local, as is the crisp and airy bread.
(1) According to some accounts, this sandwich was created by a Mme. Begue, owner of a coffee stall in New Orleans' Old French Market in 1895. She took a long, thin loaf of French bread, slit it in half lengthwise, buttered it generously, sliced it in thirds or fourths (not cutting through the bottom crust) and put a different fillling into each section The name is said to derive from the pleas of hungry black youths who begged, "Please give a sandwich to a po' boy."
(2) Another predecessor was the Peacemaker Sandwich, a loaf of French bread, split and buttered and filled with fried oysters. The poetic name derives from the fact that 19th-century husbands, coming in late from a carouse or spree, would carry one home to cushion a possible rough reception from the lady of the house.
(3) The generally excepted history is that the Po' Boy sandwich was invented by two brothers, Clovis and Benjamin Martin, in 1929 at their restaurant in the French Market. It is said, true or not, that this sandwich extravaganza began during a local transit worker's strike. The two brothers took pity on those "poor boys" and began offering sandwiches made from leftovers to any workers who came to their restaurant's back door at the end of the day. For five cents, a striker could buy a sandwich filled with gravy and trimmings (end pieces from beef roasts) or gravy and sliced potatoes.
Soon the sandwich, which quickly became known as the po' boy, was being filled with seafood, most notably fried oysters and fried shrimp. In those distant days, shellfish was abundant and cheap. The affluent joined the crowd because, at lunch or snack time, a po' boy filled with oysters was quicker to consume and easier to digest than one filled with roast beef.
Submarine Sandwich – It is a king-sized sandwich on an Italian loaf of bread approximately 12 inches long an 3 inches wide, filled with boiled ham, hard salami, cheeses, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and sometimes flavored with garlic and oregano. It is thought that the original concept of these sandwiches came from the Italians who immigrated to New York in the late 1800s and brought with them their favorite Italian Sandwich recipes.
The family of Dominic Conti (1874-1954) claims he was the first to use the name, submarine sandwich. Angela Zuccaro, granddaughter of Dominic, related the following information:
My grandfather came to this country circa 1895 from Montella, Italy. Around 1910, he started his grocery store, called Dominic Conti's Grocery Store, on Mill Street in Paterson, New Jersey where he was selling the traditional Italian sandwiches. His sandwiches were made from a recipe he brought with him from Italy which consisted of a long crust roll, filled with cold cuts, topped with lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, oil, vinegar, Italian spices, salt, and pepper. The sandwich started with a layer of cheese and ended with a layer was cheese (this was so the bread wouldn’t get soggy).
My mother often told me about how my grandfather came to name his sandwich the Submarine. She remembered the incident very well, as she was 16 years old at the time. She related that when grandfather went to see the Holland I* in 1927, the raised submarine hull that was put on display in Westside Park, he said, “It looks like the sandwich I sell at my store.” From that day on, he called his sandwich the “submarine.” People came from miles around to buy one of my Grandfather’s subs.
* In 1927, the first experimental 14-foot submarine, called Holland I, was recovered and salvaged from the Passaic River. The Holland I was built in 1878 by John Holland (1841-1914). The submarine hull was scuttled in 1878 in the Upper Passaic River after an exhaustive series of test and everything of value was removed. Holland figured that it was cheaper to start afresh rather than take her out of the water and put her in storage. The hull is currently on display at the Paterson Museum in Paterson, New Jersey.
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