Just think of the fast-casual restaurants you can rattle off by memory: Blimpie (an Arizona-based chain that opened its first shop in Hoboken, N.J., in 1964), D’Angelo (which got it start under a different name in Massachusetts during the ‘60s), and, of course, Subway (the largest restaurant chain the world). Today, of course, a familiar sight to behold is competing hero shops on the same city block or in the same suburban strip mall. Modern-day pizzerias have even capitalized on the ingredients they happen to have lying around: it’s not uncommon to see, say, chicken and eggplant parmesan heros even though tomatoes were historically omitted from the “hero” variation of the Italian sub. The term “hero” didn’t actually pop up until 1937 New York, where it’s to this day served old-school Italian-style, with variations based on vendor, of course. However you slice it, a defining characteristic of the Philadelphia version is the, uh, sub’ng of well-seasoned olive oil for mustard and vinegar. And while most people tend to associate Philly with the cheesesteak, Ed Rendell, former Philadelphia mayor and former Pennsylvania governor, once declared the hoagie the city’s official sandwich. The term “Hog Island” sandwich was shortened to “Hoggies,” and then “hoagie.” (A more sinister etymology holds that “hoagie” is slang for “on the hoke,” a disparaging remark among Philly’s Italian community to describe a poor person who subsisted on deli scraps: cheese, meats, and breads.) Anyway, the sandwich gained speed and was popularized as far as Pittsburg by the mid-1960s. In turn, his granddaughter has claimed, Conti began selling traditional Italian “subs”-a crusty roll, cold cuts, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, onions, oil and vinegar, and seasoning-from his grocery store in Paterson, N.J.Ĭontorted as the “sub” moniker may be, everyone seems in agreement that the term “hoagie” originated in 1950s Philadelphia, when Italian workers at a shipyard called “Hog Island” began making the sandwiches for themselves. Fascination with Italian-American cuisine permeated the rest of New England, and by the beginning of World War I a restaurant in Boston began selling baked baguettes to navy servicemen stationed nearby-hence, the popularization of the nickname “submarine,” or “sub.” Of course, no history of an iconic food would be complete without some measure of disagreement: others still believe that Italian immigrant Dominic Conti was inspired by seeing a recovered 1901 submarine in a New Jersey museum.
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