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dissolutewastrel OP t1_j9zq0ho wrote

Reply to comment by Allemaengel in All Hail the Hoagie by dissolutewastrel

Where I grew up in N NJ, it was mostly a "sub", but the xeroxed school lunch menu told me Thursdays were for "Hero" sandwiches. Can you believe it?

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Allemaengel t1_j9zqogq wrote

I've heard the term Hero before but never knew what that actually was.

A lot of North Jersey guys over here in the Poconos, more than coming up from Philly so 'sub' tends to win out. I don't hear 'hero' though.

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dissolutewastrel OP t1_j9zs0b1 wrote

Wikipedia is genuinely fascinating on what to call this sandwich:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_sandwich

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Allemaengel t1_j9ztw3w wrote

I saw a U.S. linguistics map once with the term usage for a hoagie. The rest of the country represented big geographical patches for every other term.

However, hoagie was only used within approximately a 60-mile radius of CC. And it proves fairly accurate in my case here about 12 miles north of the Lehigh Tunnel. I go up to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to eat sometimes and you won't see hoagie used there much.

The one for NFL allegiances created from FB data by county represented a somewhat similar extent. Where the hoagie goes, so go the Birds apparently.

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CockercombeTuff t1_ja0skgr wrote

>I go up to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to eat sometimes

I was going to ask if you'd ever eaten at The Chicken Coop, but now I've discovered that it closed last year! Sadness.

I know it's just a mom-and-pop chicken and burgers joint, but in college my team (XC/TF) had a tradition of going every year on the last day of the holiday season interim (we were already back on campus by Jan 2nd or 3rd).

Part of the tradition was that every freshman (men's team) had to eat the pig burger*. One year we didn't do that and opted to see how many chicken wings we could eat as a team. We ate somewhere around 2200 chicken wings (55 people). The freshman guys had to go for the pig burger their sophomore year.

I wish I had gone one last time, bummer.

(* A "pig burger" is: 20oz of Fresh, Never Frozen, Ground Beef with American, Cooper, Swiss, Cheddar, Pepperjack and Provolone Cheeses, Lettuce, Tomato, Raw Onion and a Half-Pound of Bacon served on a half loaf of Italian Bread; Served with our Fresh Cut Fries!)

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Allemaengel t1_ja0t43p wrote

75 y.o. Cooper's Seafood House in Scranton where scenes from The Office were filmed is a unique place -good food.

Also multiple pizzerias in Old Forge make an awesome dish or sheet pizza. The town is historically Italian going way back to coal mining immigrant days.

Never got to eat at the Coop.

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CockercombeTuff t1_ja3l8li wrote

Thanks for the rec's, I'll have to check those out. I get up that way every so often to go to an XC meet at Lehigh or take Rt 80 out to Central PA.

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Allemaengel t1_ja3liir wrote

In high school I ran in XC meets at Lehigh and later went to school there as well. Cool place.

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MrKamikazi t1_ja0zm8o wrote

Many years ago they were called hoagies in Clearfield PA which is a lot more than 60 miles away.

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Allemaengel t1_ja107kq wrote

Wasn't expecting that but I guess the researchers were trying to establish relatively neat borders around majority usage I guess.

Or was there some industry or other connection to Philly which transplanted the term to that particular area? I went to college in Central PA and it wasn't a thing in that county (not Clearfield).

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MrKamikazi t1_ja112x2 wrote

A lot of Italians but I didn't know of any direct ties to Philly while I was living there. It was also specific. A hoagie was an Italian one. Any other sandwich on a long roll was a sub.

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Allemaengel t1_ja11ezu wrote

Interesting.

Never been to Clearfield. Closest was McKean, Cameron and Centre counties. I liked the area - definitely different from the Poconos.

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lazydaisytoo t1_ja0gyra wrote

I grew up in north central PA and hoagie/sub was interchangeable. Matter of fact, one of the guys in my class was nicknamed Hoagie. I ended up moving to Norristown, and learned about the Zep. No subs down here, and the bread is definitely better.

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Allemaengel t1_ja0pot0 wrote

The Tioga-Potter line area and parts of McKean County are some of my favorite places in the state.

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TooManyDraculas t1_ja1q3ui wrote

I feel like "hero" in the NY metro mostly refers to the roll.

I grew up there. And while it's sometimes Italian Hero, American Hero. It's mostly give me a cutlet on a Hero and give me an Italian Sangwidge.

You'll honestly find "sandwich" used more often when not referring to the bread.

There's also a whole theoretical difference. To the point where I think Hoagie represents a distinct thing.

The New York area Sangwidge is all about meat. Most meat, most type of meat. Here is a loaf of meat that takes 3 people to eat. On a long roll.

And that's great when it's good.

But hoagie conveys something more. Like an actual human portion, a good amount of veggies. The hoagie spice. Even if it's just salt, pepper and oregano.

There's a whole hoagie gestalt, and specific hoagie flavor. A hoagie is a balanced whole, a hero is an imbalanced guilty pleasure. Hell idiots can make hoagie dip and hoagie salads. There are Primo hoagie chips and they taste like a hoagie.

They don't taste like a Sangwidge.

You're not making a sandwich pizza elsewhere. Or a hero, sub or whatever the fuck flavored anything.

Also hoagie is more fun to say.

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cheese4theppl t1_ja0dwff wrote

Hero is a NY thing. I always call it meatball parm hero or chicken parm hero by default, anything cold I call hoagie. That’s what happens when you grow up in central jersey I guess.

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dissolutewastrel OP t1_ja0rqyz wrote

I have the misfortune of knowing bigots and perverts who insist there's no such thing as central Jersey. (NJ = North & South, no central...just as there's no E. Jersey or West. Like I said they're addle-brained.)

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TooManyDraculas t1_ja1ow56 wrote

Central Jersey is a thing that only exists for people from North Jersey who don't want to be associated with North Jersey.

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Allemaengel t1_ja0rxfj wrote

My gf grew up in South Jersey, I was born in NW Jersey, and one of my best friends in college grew up in Cranbury, Middlesex County and I teased her about the existence of Central Jersey, lol.

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cheese4theppl t1_ja1pojm wrote

I grew up in the town literally next to Cranbury

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Allemaengel t1_ja1pz0p wrote

Maybe West Windsor?

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cheese4theppl t1_ja431y0 wrote

Basically! Plainsboro but they share a school district.

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Allemaengel t1_ja43zdc wrote

Nice area there though it's been about 20 years or so since I've been through there.

I remember there were still a lot of fields on that road between Cranbury and Plainsboro back then.

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felis_scipio t1_ja1lym8 wrote

NYC thing, growing up upstate we’d call everything a sub.

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a-german-muffin t1_ja0vfu7 wrote

Hunterdon County, NJ is the triple point of sandwich naming — hoagies in the towns close to the Delaware, a mix of hoagie/hero/sub in Flemington and its surrounds (there was literally a sandwich joint there called the All American Hero up until about 2000 or so), and just subs by the time you hit Route 22.

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Allemaengel t1_ja429fu wrote

Lol, then literally the hospital I was born in sits basically right at that tri-point in Hunterdon, lol.

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