Why Some Sandwiches Are Called Heroes

When Shakespeare wrote the line "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," he likely didn't have Italian sandwiches in mind, but he may as well have. A sandwich tastes delicious no matter what you call it. One of the classic American sandwiches is the sub, named for its long bread roll that supposedly resembles a submarine. But depending on where you're hailing from, you may have grown up calling this New York Italian deli sandwich by another name. In The Big Apple, it's known as a hero.

There are two debated origins for the rise of this name, and while it's impossible to determine which one was truly the first, both origin stories take place around the same time in the 1930s. Clementine Paddleworth, a food writer for the New York Herald Tribune, allegedly called the iconic Italian sandwich a hero in 1936 because of its size — one simply had to be a hero to eat it, she proposed. In 1937, the name appeared in a Lexicon of Trade Jargon, where it defined a hero as a jargon term for a big sandwich used by armored car guards. Whether it was Clementine or the car guards who first used this name, we don't know, but we do know that it has stuck in NYC to this day.

A hero sandwich is your typical Italian sub sandwich — packed with cold-cut deli meats, cheese, lettuce, and other veggies of choice inside an oblong bread bun that's commonly called the sub roll. The sandwich is traditionally massive, both in length and thickness. For the cold cuts, you can take your pick between most Italian deli meats but can't go wrong with mortadella, prosciutto, and Genoa salami. Using three to four different varieties is essential to give the sandwich some meat (literally and figuratively). The veggies almost always include lettuce and tomatoes — but feel free to spice that up with onions, bell peppers, or hot peppers if you like heat, pickles, and anything else you're craving. You can toss the lettuce in some light vinaigrette to give it a bit more flavor before adding it to the hero. For cheese, go with provolone exclusively, and make sure you're spreading mayo on the bread before assembling the sandwich.

There are many ways to upgrade an Italian sub, and although the hero sandwich originally began as a cold sub, it has evolved into a hot sandwich as well. The simplest upgrade is to toast the sammie or take it a step further and swap the deli meats for something more substantial, though just as Italian — meatballs. Look to our truly heroic Italian meatball sandwich recipe for inspiration.