Dave (imported) wrote: Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:33 pm Aw phooey.

We can't get real bagels anymore around here. The supermarket has "bagels" but they are the wimpy GOY version of the real thing.

Now when I was young and lived in NYC,

Yep, same problem here.

Dave (imported) wrote: Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:33 pm Aw phooey.

We can't get real bagels anymore around here. The supermarket has "bagels" but they are the wimpy GOY version of the real thing.

Now when I was young and lived in NYC,

I know just what you mean, its the same in LA and SF both, great bagels. There is this one shop in the city (SF) where you buy them and there still warm out of the oven, mmmmmmmmmmm some cream cheese and lox and maybe a slice of cucumber, your in heaven.

Today you get a imitation of them, you even have lox flavored cream cheese.

I am with you Dave, I want the real thing.

River

Primanti Brothers in the Strip District in Pittsburgh. None better.

http://www.primantibros.com/

Falcon (imported) wrote: Sat Mar 03, 2007 3:04 pm Primanti Brothers in the Strip District in Pittsburgh. None better.

http://www.primantibros.com/

That does look lethal. Am I hungry in the middle of the night. I wish that I were in Pittsburg!

I can still remember the first sub I ever had. It probably wouldn't meet my mature culinary standards, but it was ecstasy at the time, and for many years I sought to duplicate that experience.

When I was a boy in the Bronx, my Jewish father was the only non-Italian member (he sometimes fenced hot diamonds) of a "social club" in the Belmont neighborhood of Italian immigrants. This was the large back room of a little cigar store. 10-20 men (men only) would gather around tables to play pinochle and talk. My father sometimes brought me, and I was bursting with pride as all the gruff older men (several low-level Mafiosi hung out there) would smile and give me friendly greetings. One day somebody asked if the kid wanted something to eat. My father said yes, so one of the men made me a sub from a small Italian loaf with a leathery crackling crust and moist chewy inside. He added a sharp biting mustard, thin slices of salty ham, and Swiss cheese. Bliss! Culinary orgasm! In my home, there was no ham, no mustard, and no Italian bread - my mother believed in simple, unseasoned foods. This was the first time I'd ever tasted these things. For years after, I hoped to get the same sub whenever I went back to the club, but no one was in the mood to feed the kid again, and I couldn't ask - kids were expected to keep their yap shut in those days. I made up for it with years of sub-eating, but it's hard to get the true Italian bread. Most of what passes has a thin soft crust and dry papery inside - yuch! Hot mustard you've got to buy yourself. Oh, well. But that first sub was heaven. My pleasure was probably magnified by the place and the people, which is often the case with memorable meals.

Mmmm.. I love a meatball sub from Subway, with Jalepenos and parmesan cheese.

bobov (imported) wrote: Sun Mar 04, 2007 1:44 am I can still remember the first sub I ever had. It probably wouldn't meet my mature culinary standards, but it was ecstasy at the time, and for many years I sought to duplicate that experience.

When I was a boy in the Bronx, my Jewish father was the only non-Italian member (he sometimes fenced hot diamonds) of a "social club" in the Belmont neighborhood of Italian immigrants. This was the large back room of a little cigar store. 10-20 men (men only) would gather around tables to play pinochle and talk. My father sometimes brought me, and I was bursting with pride as all the gruff older men (several low-level Mafiosi hung out there) would smile and give me friendly greetings. One day somebody asked if the kid wanted something to eat. My father said yes, so one of the men made me a sub from a small Italian loaf with a leathery crackling crust and moist chewy inside. He added a sharp biting mustard, thin slices of salty ham, and Swiss cheese. Bliss! Culinary orgasm! In my home, there was no ham, no mustard, and no Italian bread - my mother believed in simple, unseasoned foods. This was the first time I'd ever tasted these things. For years after, I hoped to get the same sub whenever I went back to the club, but no one was in the mood to feed the kid again, and I couldn't ask - kids were expected to keep their yap shut in those days. I made up for it with years of sub-eating, but it's hard to get the true Italian bread. Most of what passes has a thin soft crust and dry papery inside - yuch! Hot mustard you've got to buy yourself. Oh, well. But that first sub was heaven. My pleasure was probably magnified by the place and the people, which is often the case with memorable meals.

What great story. What a great memory. My father had a childhood friend who ran prostitutes, raced NASCAR, and lived a rough life. He was a generous soul. I remember him fondly. My dad taught him how to fly airplanes.

Blaise, your father's friend sounds like my kind of guy. As I've aged, I've grown more and more respectable. I no longer know any criminals. Too bad for me. Perhaps I should become a criminal myself, but that would work only if I have a high degree of self-knowledge. The juiciest parts of my memoir (if I ever write one) will tell what happened before I turned 30.

How many names for subs are there? I can think of sub, submarine, torpedo, hoagie (I think this was named after Hoagie Carmichael), grinder, and hero. There may regional or local names. Anyone? I just started a web search and found Po' boy, Zepplin, Dagwood, Rocket, and Italian sandwich. Wikipedia has Cosmo, Bomb, Bomber, Spuckie (now rare, it says!), Wedge, and Zep. Wow! I'm starting to feel hungry, so I'd better stop.

Togo's, It started out as "to go" but that changed quickly. It all started in the mid 70's a Business student at San Jose State needed a job but only wanted to work 2 hours here and 3 hours there, to fit his class schedule. Well there was no jobs like that but there was this old rundown house across the street.

He opened a sub shop and everything was to go as he had no tables. His motto was to make a sub like you would like it. You don't weigh the meat but pile it one. He found other students that liked the working conditions so he was always staffed. Before he graduated he had 3 shops, all next to colleges. Today there are hundreds of the all over the south west making subs the way you would make your Ultimate Sub.

I love there meatball sub. 5 big meatballs will the gravy and you have half now and half later.

Sigh, the only sub shops near me is subway and all they make is salad with a little meat flavor.

Turkey, swiss, avocado, lettuce, tomato, red onion, salt and pepper and topped with vinegar and oil.

Now thats my kind of sub.

River

Some of the sandwiches described in the posts sound pretty good--I've known about them, and just never tried them. I know Subway has meatball subs, but I usually think of Subway as a place to get sandwiches made with lunch meats that we can add to at home. The fried oyster sandwiches sound good, too. I wonder if there is any sandwich chain which has them outside Louisiana.

I think Dave is right in saying that the bun should be toasted. I guess I'm usually in too much of a hurry to put the two halves of the bun in the toaster oven.

Anyway, when I'm really hungry and want a sub, this is one of my favorites. As mentioned earlier, I prefer sourdough, the crusty California-style rolls, and I like to use the whole one-pound loaf. Making the sandwich for myself, I put alfalfa sprouts on the bun as the first layer. I don't usually use butter, but do occasionally sprinkle on a little olive oil. The first meat layer is a smoked meat, usually hickory smoked ham, if I have it available. I like summer sausage, so a layer of that goes over the ham. Sometimes I use hard salami instead of the summer sausage. The third meat layer can be either pastrami or something relatively mild like mortadella. (I use pretty thin layers, for obvious reasons. I have to be able to get the sandwich in my mouth.) Over the meat layer goes, usually, a layer of gouda, sliced thin. This can take all of one of the little round wax-coated goudas most grocery stores have. Over that I put a layer of a more flavorful cheese--usually fontinella or Fontina d'Aosta, if I can get it. Also, when making the sandwich for myself, I will sometimes use Stilton for this layer. The Stilton has to be very thin, though, or the flavor will take over the sandwich. My third cheese layer is something relatively mild, Emmenthal or some other Swiss type, or munster, or monterey jack.

Then, for the fresh vegetable layer, I always put in sliced tomatoes. I won't even make a sub if I don't have tomatoes. I like the plum tomatoes best, ripe but not soft. Over a layer of them, I like to put sliced artichoke hearts, the canned type, not the pickled ones. Another thng that I like on a sub is celery root, but it has to be sliced thin and put in the microwave for a minute or so to soften it. I'll also slice bok choy, the bulb-like ends of the stalks, and put them in the microwave to soften them up, and put a layer of that on the sandwich. For the pickle layer, I normally slice fresh-pack dills, the type you get in the deli section of the supermarket. If I didn't use artichokes on the lower layer, I slice marinated artichokes and put them on the pickle layer. Marinated mushrooms, sliced, are also good in the pickle layer, but I rarely use them. Any of the vegetables from a jardeniere jar are also good, especially the pickled red peppers, although I don't put on a full layer of the peppers. I do sometimes put on some whole green chilis, the mild canned ones. Normally I wouldn't put on a crunchy layer, but I have done this a few times, using crisp tostada rounds.

My usual dressing for a sandwich like this is thick ranch dressing, the kind that's made to be used on things other than salad, which I spread on the underside of the top half of the bun. I will also put a little mustard on, usually brown mustard. And sometimes a little hot sauce.

As you can probably guess, the sandwich is good for a couple of meals. A full bodied beer like Sierra Nevada's porter goes pretty well with it, or any microbrew lager. Also steam beer. I don't think there's any wine that matches up with the sausage and pickle flavors.

On the one hand, it seems like putting oysters in a sandwich like this would be overkill. But maybe sometime, if there are a few in the refrigerator........