Pepper and Egg (Chicago)
Soft fried peppers folded into loose scrambled egg on a chewy Italian roll, made by a Chicago beef stand on its own griddle. The meatless-Friday order, sharp with long hots or sweet with bells.
The Sub, Hoagie, Hero & Grinder
New Jersey Sub
New Jersey calls the long Italian roll a sub, statewide, and what the state really owns is the pork store behind the counter: the butcher-deli that cures its own meat, dresses it oil-and-vinegar.
Meatball Sub
A meatball sub from an Ohio strip mall is built to taste like the one from an Oregon strip mall, ratio for ratio. The one thing the line can't fix is that a sphere rolls, so the meatballs get seated.
Meatball Parm Hero
The New York meatball parm hero: bread-bound meatballs simmered in marinara, capped with mozzarella, and broiled on a hero. Soft filling on soft bread, the one parm with no crisp shell to defend.
Meatball Hoagie
Beef-and-pork meatballs in clinging gravy on a seeded Italian hoagie roll from Sarcone's, Amoroso's, or Liscio's, finished with aged sharp provolone. Philadelphia discipline, not a soft-roll sub.
Meatball Grinder
The New England meatball grinder: meatballs in marinara on a sturdy Italian roll, finished under a broiler with melted mozzarella until the cheese blisters and the crust deepens to mahogany.
Lobster Grinder
Picked lobster bound in mayonnaise or warmed in butter, packed into a foot-long sub roll over iceberg and tomato; the southern New England Italian-sub reading of lobster.
Jimmy John's #9 Italian Night Club
Genoa salami, capocollo, and smoked ham shingled with provolone on a soft French roll, dressed cold and built in under a minute for delivery, the #9 from Jimmy John's.
Jersey Shore Italian Sub
A two-foot Italian roll dressed in oil and vinegar, wrapped for the sand. On the Jersey Shore it is a sub, not a hoagie, and the famous counters trace back to White House in Atlantic City.
Jersey Mike's Original Italian
Six cured meats shingled to order and dressed "Mike's Way" with the vinegar and oil applied last over the top, the #13 Original Italian from Jersey Mike's.
Italian Sub/Hero/Hoagie
The generic Italian sub the US Northeast calls a hero in New York, a hoagie in Philadelphia, a grinder in New England, a wedge in the Hudson Valley, and a zep on the Schuylkill.
Italian Sandwich
A Maine Italian is ham, American cheese, green pepper, onion, tomato, sour pickle, black olives, and oil on a soft roll that folds shut. Traced to Amato's of Portland, dockside, 1902.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gym Shoe
Italian beef with corned beef, gyro meat, and mozzarella; fusion sandwich.
Grinder (New England)
Regional term for submarine sandwich; often toasted with melted cheese.
Firehouse Subs Hook & Ladder
Smoked turkey, Virginia honey ham, and Monterey Jack, toasted then steamed until it fuses into one warm thing. The Hook & Ladder is Firehouse Subs' 1994 original, built around a firehouse technique.
Fat Sandwich
Massive sub with cheesesteak, chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, fries, and more; Rutgers University tradition.
Fat Moon
The Fat Moon is the grease-truck menu's breakfast-in-a-sub: chicken fingers, bacon, egg and fries in one roll. A quiet name that survived untouched when Rutgers made the trucks sanitize their boards.
Fat Darrell
The Rutgers grease-truck sub built entirely from the fried side of the menu: chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, and French fries on a sub roll, with marinara ladled through to hold the pile together.
Fat Cat
Fat sandwich with cheesesteak, chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, fries, lettuce, tomato.