The Potential Inspiration For Subway's Italian BMT

There are a few things you can count on if you're looking for a quick, tasty sandwich, and one of those things is that there's a Subway located within a short distance from you. The popularity of this fast food restaurant chain could in part have to do with the ability to customize the sandwich to your own personal tastes and dietary needs. Or, as Taste of Home postulates, the popularity may also be because it is one of the cheapest restaurants to franchise.

No matter the reason for the amount of Subway restaurants you can find in the world, you can't deny the popularity of their lunch meat combinations, including one of the restaurant's classic Subway sandwiches made with Genoa salami, pepperoni, and Black Forest ham, also known as the Italian BMT. The Italian portion of the sandwich's name is due to the salami and pepperoni, but if you've ever wondered what the initials in this sandwich stand for, there are a couple of theories for where the inspiration behind the name came from.

You may already know that a sub is a sandwich served on a particular type of submarine-shaped bread, as noted in Bon Appétit. But the menu at the sandwich shop has something else in common with America's oldest underground mode of public transportation. Besides the business's moniker, the New York City subway transit system may have other connections to the sandwich shop menu. Some say this is where the inspiration for the name of the Italian BMT could have originated.

Depending on where you look online, the inspiration for the Italian sub could have come from the New York City transit system or it could stand for the sandwich's flavor. First, let's talk about the subway transit system. According to data provided by Baruch College, in the early 1900s, the New York City transit system established a dual transit system through two companies known as the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT). While it may stand to reason that the sandwich was named after the transit company, there's another theory. As Untapped Cities reports, the sandwich was created in 1975 and stood for "Biggest, Meatiest, Tastiest." And if you take a peek at Subway's website, the description of this sandwich still reflects those three terms today.