Italian Hoagie
Genoa salami, capicola, and ham shingled with provolone on a seeded Philadelphia roll, dressed with oil and oregano. The cold-cut argument of the South Philly deli counter.
Andrew Lekashman
Italian Hero
Capicola, salami, ham, and provolone shingled down a long roll with oil, vinegar, and oregano. New York's cold deli default, and the unproven Paddleford story behind the name.
Italian Beef
You order it by telling the counter how wet you want it: dry, wet, dipped, baptized. That vocabulary is the giveaway, the cook controls the moisture and you do not.
Italian Beef (Dipped)
The dipped Italian beef sends the whole assembled sandwich back into the jus before serving, called wet, soaked, or dipped at the counter. Al's #1, Mr. Beef, Johnnie's.
Italian Beef Combo
A Chicago Italian beef with a grilled Italian sausage laid in alongside the shaved seasoned beef; the two-protein combo order from the Taylor Street beef-stand tradition.
In-N-Out Style Burger
Fresh, never-frozen beef, hand-leafed lettuce, tomato, and spread on a sponge-dough bun.
In-N-Out 4x4
Four beef patties and four slices of American cheese; In-N-Out's secret menu maximum standard build.
Impossible/Beyond Burger
Plant-based burger patties designed to mimic beef using heme (Impossible, est. 2016) or pea protein (Beyond, est. 2012); available at Bur...
Idaho Finger Steaks
Strips of beef coated in batter and deep-fried, served in a basket or on bread with cocktail sauce; Idaho's unique contribution to fried ...
Hot Pastrami
Steamed pastrami served hot on rye with mustard.
Hot Open-Face Turkey Sandwich
The diner hot turkey sandwich: roast turkey on a single slice of soft white bread, the whole plate flooded with hot gravy, eaten with a fork. The blue-plate special, built around bread meant to soak.
Hot Open-Face Roast Beef
A single slice of soft white bread under thin roast beef and brown gravy, a scoop of mashed potato beside it under the same gravy, eaten with a fork off a wide oval diner plate.
Hot Muffuletta
The New Orleans muffuletta the classic asks you to leave cold, run instead through a press at Napoleon House until the seeded loaf flattens, the olive oil runs.
Hot Brown
The Hot Brown goes under the broiler face-up: turkey on toast, flooded with Mornay, bacon and tomato browned on top. The sauce does two jobs, seasoning the plate and binding it into one.
Horseshoe
Open-faced sandwich with meat on toast, covered with French fries and cheese sauce.
Hoosier Tenderloin
The Indiana breaded pork tenderloin under the state's own nickname: a pounded, fried cutlet hanging inches past a small bun, dressed cold in the center. A schnitzel gone Hoosier.
Hoagie
Order a sub anywhere else and you've named a container. Order a hoagie in Philadelphia and you've named a specific sandwich. That precision is the most local thing about it.
Hero Sandwich
New York term for submarine sandwich; typically on Italian bread.
Hawaiian Sweet Bread Sandwich
Twelve enriched Hawaiian sweet rolls filled with ham and Swiss, baked under a Dijon-butter-poppy-seed glaze: the slider format works because Robert Taira engineered this bread to last seventeen days.
Hawaiian Plate Lunch Sandwich
The plate-lunch sandwich: two-scoop rice, macaroni salad, and a teriyaki or kalua protein folded into a soft roll. Rainbow Drive-In has served the format since 1961.
Hamburger
Press ground beef onto a screaming flat-top and the hamburger is mostly decided before a topping is reached for. The sear is not a step in the build, it is the build.
Ham and Pimiento Cheese
Salt-cured country ham shaved thin under a Southern lunch counter's pimiento cheese: the tangy cheddar-and-mayonnaise spread answered by a low cured funk, cold off the tray.
Ham and Cheese
Two cured things that hold each other up: salted ham and aged cheddar on buttered white. The British plain ham and cheese is the ploughman's folded shut and the meal deal's quiet baseline.
Ham and Cheese Hero
The plainest cold sub a New York deli sells, ham and provolone on a long roll, named by the one word that fixes it to the city. Hero reaches print in the mid-1930s; the Paddleford coinage story does.