Posted on 10/16/2003 11:10:07 AM PDT by paulklenk
WE are a city of 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.
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. I have finished heroes in all five boroughs of the city, more of them good than bad. I went to Caputo's on Court Street in Brooklyn, where the Caputo family still lives above the store. I traveled to Leo's in Queens, where I stood in line with police officers and firemen and sad-looking Mets fans for magnificent fare, and then moved on to the Corona Heights Pork Store on Corona Avenue, where Frank and Mary Lou Capezza have been working side by side for 20 years.
One day on Staten Island, I dined in the parking lot of a strip mall, feasting on the heroes created at A&C Superette, run by the mother-and-son team of Clara and Anthony Fazzino. Then I drove to the Bronx for a second lunchtime meal at Mike's, in the old-fashioned Arthur Avenue Retail Market. The next day I hit Brooklyn again for heroes, and lower Manhattan. Then back to Queens. Some people go on sugar jags. I ate mortadella and capicolla until my belt groaned and my eyelids began to droop.
My voyage began, as many immigrant tales do, on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, high above the West Side docks.
Howard Robboy, a sociologist who is the co-author of two scholarly papers on the subject, says that the hero, then called an Italian sandwich, was first made in New York in the late 19th century, on the premises of Petrucci's Wines and Brandies at 488 Ninth Avenue near 37th Street. The site is now Manganaro Foods, which still serves O.K. heroes.
The Italian sandwich was mainly served, Mr. Robboy said, to southern Italian manual laborers who wanted a taste of home — a big one. And from this humble Hell's Kitchen start, the sandwich traveled to other Italian neighborhoods throughout the city: Greenwich Village and Little Italy in lower Manhattan; Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, north Williamsburg and Bensonhurst in Brooklyn; Astoria and Corona Heights in Queens; Belmont and Morris Park in the Bronx; wherever Italian cheeses, breads or pork products were sold.
For the record, Manganaro Foods' next door neighbor is Manganaro's Hero-Boy. The two establishments are owned by brothers, Salvatore and James Dell'Orto, who fought with each other for much of the last third of the last century; they are only now in the final stages of resolving their differences. Hero-Boy's cold heroes are not so hot, but its chicken parmigiana hero is satisfying.
THERE are a number of things the discerning eater should look for in a cold hero. The flavors of the sandwich should be complementary, as should the textures. Meat should marry fat, crunch should dance with cream, tangy should balance the sweet, the salty, the plain. The sandwich should be beautiful. And, as is true of virtually every great dish, a great hero should be made of only the finest ingredients.
Everything begins with the bread. It should be crisp and crusty, not soft and doughy, with a pronounced yeasty flavor. The proper form is to rip out some of the dough before piling on the meats.
The best hero bread I have come across in New York is made by Royal Crown bakery in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Giuseppe Generoso, Royal Crown's founder, is so serious about the stuff he makes two kinds, one for cured meats, or salumi, and one for turkey and chicken. Other places use good crusty Italian baguettes cut in half.
The soft, doughy hero roll — what much of the country bites into when it enjoys a sub or a hoagie — once threatened to take over New York. Marc Buzzio, the genius of salumi, who owns Salumeria Biellese on Seventh Avenue in northern Chelsea, said he has to serve them. "That's what people want," he said.
The best hero places offer a choice of rolls: hard or soft, seeded or unseeded, long and thin or football shaped, made in brick ovens. Years ago, at the Italian Food Center on Grand Street in Little Italy, part of the splendid ritual of ordering a hero and watching it being made was to select your own hero roll, which in many cases was still warm. The only place I found that carries on this terrific tradition is Lioni in Dycker Heights in Brooklyn, where you can choose among breads delivered fresh from nine different bakeries.
If the place has good bread, it's time to look closely at the cold-cut case. Look for salumi from high-quality, high-cost purveyors: Volpi or Oldani salami from St. Louis, dried sausage and soppressata from Alps Provisions in Queens, prosciutto di Parma, imported mortadella studded with pistachio nuts. Beware of prosciutto imported from Canada, not Italy; it might as well have come from Akron on the late bus. And save the Boar's Head for a ham and cheese sandwich — what you want in a hero is the taste of home-cured meats.
And in fact, some of the best hero shops in New York make their own salumi. Marc Buzzio makes fabulous fresh and dried sausage at Salumeria Biellese. Frank Capezza of the Corona Heights Pork Store makes his own soppressata, capicolla and dried sausage. You see them hanging above the meat case in his tiny shop.
Then, construct your hero as you might order a drink at the bar of the Four Seasons, ignoring the well brands and calling for top-shelf bottles. A sandwich made with prosciutto di Parma or house-made soppressata may cost a dollar or two more, but it's more than worth it.
Cheese? When it comes to mozzarella in heroes, you should get it only if it's made on the premises, or in the neighborhood and delivered daily. Ask about this, as commercial mozzarella adds a rubbery texture and no flavor to a hero. Mr. Capezza at Corona Heights Pork Store makes his wonderful creamy mozzarella in the back, and when he cuts into it to make a hero, it's so fresh it spurts milk. (Mr. Capezza, by the by, has a superb hero pedigree; his in-laws owned the legendary Carl's Dairy in Astoria, which closed in 1984, but was known to be among the best hero spots in New York practically from its opening in 1925.)
There are all kinds of provolones to put on a hero: domestic, imported, aged, fresh. The aged Italian provolone called piccante is a fabulous cheese, but it is so sharp it should be used sparingly, almost as a condiment. In contrast, some domestic provolones are so dull and drab-tasting they add nothing to a sandwich. The best provolones I've had on sandwiches are made by the Auricchio family in Italy — and Wisconsin.
Condiments and dressings can make a huge difference on a hero, but they cannot redeem a bad one. Sliced tomatoes add nothing to a hero unless they are perfectly vine-ripened tomatoes like the ones Alessandro Gualandi puts in his superb mozzarella, basil and tomato hero at Melampo in Greenwich Village.
Fresh basil, like the leaves Mary Lou Capezza sometimes uses at Corona Heights, can make a sandwich into a work of art. Roasted peppers can also make a fine addition to a hero, but too often they come from a jar or a can, and, furthermore, wet down the sandwich so much they make it soggy. But I will say that hot cherry peppers or pepperoncini, if used sparingly on top of a hero, are a valuable addition, lending some spice and heat to the whole affair.
Dressings deserve a few words as well. The presence of oil and vinegar in a hero often leaves the customer with soggy bread, and too often the vinegar is so cheap it lends the sandwich an unwanted astringent, sour note. I stand for just a drizzle of olive oil across the top of the sandwich, or a light coating of the transcendent caper vinaigrette Mr. Gualandi makes at Melampo.
What's in it? "Herbs and spices," he said, and would say no more. It is so good it can be eaten with a spoon.
The ratio of all of this to the bread is, of course, paramount to your enjoyment of the sandwich. You want a big hero, sometimes an enormous one. But you've got to be careful.
In Queens, near the bridge to Rikers Island, there is a place called Sal, Kris & Charlie's Deli: Sandwich Kings of Astoria. It serves the two largest heroes I have ever seen — the Italian combination and a creation they call the Bomb, each weighing in at over a pound.
The Italian combination features Genoa salami, Alps soppressata, Volpi capicolla, Galloni prosciutto from Italy, mortadella, sharp provolone, hot or sweet peppers, oil, vinegar and oregano. The Bomb adds to this roast beef, turkey, bologna, American cheese, mild provolone, mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce and onions. If you dropped it on your foot, the foot would ache.
When I ordered an Italian combination a few weeks ago, the counterman, Billy Tsilibaris, said: "That's smart. Start with the Italian combo and then work your way up to the Bomb."
I don't know about that. The Sandwich Kings' Italian combination is superb, but I think roast beef, turkey, American cheese and mayonnaise are heretical on a hero. Shredded lettuce, too, and in this I am not alone.
I was in the A&C Superette on Staten Island picking up a sandwich the other day when a customer next to me asked for lettuce on his hero. Anthony Fazzino, the proprietor, looked up at him in mock outrage.
"Shredded lettuce?" he said. "What do you think we are, some kind of chain?"
Then come visit us in NYC!
Painfully true. Prosciutto san Danielle is also acceptable, and there are some fine soppressatas outside of Queens. But a lesser prosciutto will have the aftertaste of crankcase oil and the consistency of an old fan belt. And I stay away from Boar’s Head meats because of their resemblance to cardboard.
There are all kinds of provolones to put on a hero: domestic, imported, aged, fresh. The aged Italian provolone called piccante is a fabulous cheese, but it is so sharp it should be used sparingly, almost as a condiment. In contrast, some domestic provolones are so dull and drab-tasting they add nothing to a sandwich. The best provolones I've had on sandwiches are made by the Auricchio family in Italy — and Wisconsin.
The Auricchio provolone from Wisconsin is good, but the Auricchio from Italy is exceptional. Auricchio’s main competition in Italy went down the tubes twenty years ago when the 96-year old patriarch who ran it died, and his playboy grandsons ran the business into the ground. Stick with the imported provolone, but use it sparingly as suggested.
Fresh basil, like the leaves Mary Lou Capezza sometimes uses at Corona Heights, can make a sandwich into a work of art. Roasted peppers can also make a fine addition to a hero, but too often they come from a jar or a can, and, furthermore, wet down the sandwich so much they make it soggy. But I will say that hot cherry peppers or pepperoncini, if used sparingly on top of a hero, are a valuable addition, lending some spice and heat to the whole affair.
Fresh basil complements everything you put it on. For roasted peppers, always make your own. It’s not that difficult, and once made they will keep for a long time when refrigerated. It’s a tie between pepperoncini and hot cherry peppers, but keep as much of the vinegar out as you can. It messes with the general taste of the sandwich.
The Sandwich Kings' Italian combination is superb, but I think roast beef, turkey, American cheese and mayonnaise are heretical on a hero. Shredded lettuce, too, and in this I am not alone.
Shredded lettuce? Turkey? Roast beef? American cheese?!! Infamia!
Please...
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