Names for a Sandwich Made on a Long Roll Cut Lengthwise: Hoagie, Sub, Hero, and More

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, my name is Larry. I’m in Irvington, New York.

Well, we’re glad to have you. What’s up?

So a few years ago, I was in Pennsylvania on vacation with friends around by the Poconos area, I think it was.

And I bumped into some people, local people from Pennsylvania, started talking.

And at one point, one of the guys from Pennsylvania said he was hungry and wanted to eat a hoagie.

I said, what’s that?

I had never heard of a hoagie before.

And he looked at me as if I might be joking.

He didn’t believe that I did not know what a hoagie was.

But then he proceeded to explain.

He said, you get a piece of Italian bread.

You open it up.

And then he turned to me and said, and then you get lunch meat.

And he said to me, you know what lunch meat is, don’t you?

And after I assured him that I did know what lunch meat was and I wasn’t totally out of it,

he proceeded to say, well, you get things like ham and turkey and you put it in the bread

and you put lettuce and tomatoes in. And I said, oh, that’s a hero. I said, in New York,

that’s what we call a hero. And then we did order some hoagies and we had a great lunch.

Short time after that, I was talking to my daughter. My daughter was teaching down in

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and she told me that she had had a po’boy. She explained to me that it was

basically kind of like a a hero but with different things in it like shrimp and all of that

things from locally from Baton Rouge. So I have not traveled the U.S. much, so my question is

is do other parts of the country have different names for what I in New York call a hero?

Oh, Larry, you’re asking a food question of us.

How much time do you have?

Are you sitting down?

I am sitting here.

Yeah, get a cushion and a chair, a notepad.

This is a big question with a big answer, and it’s been well-researched by dialectologists.

And it’s going to just ring a lot of bells for a lot of people because it is this sandwich with variations is regional and has been for a long time.

And the hoagie, yes, is very Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.

And it has been for a long time.

Hero, yes, is very New York.

Now, Irving, you said you’re in Irvington?

Right.

But I grew up in Queens and Australia and Woodside.

That makes more sense to me.

Yeah, hero is very New York City and dates back to the 1930s.

I found the earliest use of it that anyone knows of in the unpublished manuscript of the lexicon of trade jargon.

And then you’ve got submarine sandwich, which is by far away the most used term in the United States.

And it predates the subway shop, the trade name.

So it’s older than that company.

So it doesn’t come from the company.

The company took the term that already existed.

And then you get terms like grinder, which is used in New England outside of Boston.

And you get older terms which have faded, unfortunately, like torpedo or torp.

It used to be common in upstate New York.

Unfortunately, it’s little used.

Or zeppelin or zep. Parts of Pennsylvania use that. Po’boy or poor boy in New Orleans, fortunately, is still strong. I’m just slobbering thinking about a catfish po’boy right now. I can do it. Garibaldi in Wisconsin. They’re all yelling at the radio in Wisconsin. I got you. I got you, Wisconsin. Don’t worry. I’m taking care of you. Muffalata also is another one. I think that’s in New Orleans as well. Bomber. I think they may still use that in Buffalo, upstate New York. What else, Martha? What am I missing here?

Well, in Boston, there’s the name that comes from the Italian word spucadella, meaning long rolls. Is it spooky? Yeah, yeah, Southie uses that, although that’s also really faded in use and it’s really rare to hear anymore. It’s very much the older folks using that. It’s pretty much been forced out by Grindr and Sub. Jeez, there’s a lot more than I realized.

Yeah, for a while in Cincinnati, you might have heard Rocket, Cuban Sandwich in Miami, although it’s very different and very specific, and it’s about as far away from a sub or hoagie as you can get. But it’s still kind of clasped in there with it. Yeah, so there’s tons of these things. And I have a feeling our listeners are going to chime in with more.

Yeah, and that’s just the United States. Who knows what they’re doing in Canada and Australia and the U.K., you know? Yeah, South Africa, I think it’s a Gatsby. Oh, lovely. Thank you for all the information.

Yeah, sure. Thanks for calling this. We love the food questions. Larry, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us. All right. Have a good day. Take care. You too. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. All right. Bye-bye.

If you feel like I left you out in the list of words for submarine-style sandwiches, by all means, let me know what I forgot. 877-929-9673 or email words@waywordradio.org.