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In the Mediterranean, where Turkish and Greek mezze platters that served dips, cheeses, and meats were all “sandwiched” between and on layers of bread.

The sandwich as we know it was popularized in England in 1762 by John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich. Legend has it that Montagu had a substantial gambling problem that led him to spend hours on end at the card table. During a particularly long binge, he asked the house cook to bring him something he could eat without getting up from his seat, and the sandwich was born. Montagu enjoyed his meat and bread so much that he ate it constantly, and as the concoction grew popular in London society circles it also took on the Earl’s name.

One myth puts the origin of the submarine sandwich town of Groton, CT home to a Navy submarine base and a large shipbuilding yard, both of which were bustling during world war II. According to this story, the big sandwich itself was invented by an Italian shopkeeper named Benedetto Capaldo in New London, CT, but was originally known as a "grinder." Once the sub yard started ordering 500 sandwiches a day from Capaldo to feed its workers, the sandwich became irrevocably associated with submersible boats.

A nice story, but the first printed record of "submarine sandwich" dates to a January 1940 phone book for Wilmington, DE, where a restaurant was advertising "submarine sandwiches to take out." As we didn't mobilize for WWII until two years later, that pretty much torpedoes the New London legend.

 "Grinder" shares some nautical roots with the sub. Grinders was a slang term for Italian-American dockworkers who were often sanding and grinding rusty hulls to repaint them. Subs, with their Italian bread and piles of fixings, were harder to chew through than your typical ham and cheese on white bread. It’s possible that was translated into "grinder," since that's what your teeth had to do to get through a bite. Don’t get caught up in the concept that a grinder has to be hot. It’s been considered both over the years. 

 Hero: The hero's journey began with the wonderfully named Clementine Paddleworth, who probably coined the word in a food column for the New York Herald Tribune in 1936, since the sandwich was so large "you had to be a hero to eat it." 

 Hoagie: There are several stories about the origin of Hoagie but I am telling you this one. A jazz musician turned sandwich shop owner named Al De Palma in the late 1920s saw some fellow hepcats eating a sub, and commented to himself that you "had to be a hog" to eat a sandwich that big. So when he opened a sub shop during the Depression, he started calling his big sandwiches "hoggies," and eventually opened chains across the city. As for why "hoggie" turned to "hoagie," the best explanation out there is probably the Philadelphia accent itself. Ever heard those guys speak? 

Po' Boys: The only strong contender for the true name of the sandwich outside of the Eastern Seaboard comes from New Orleans, where the sandwich goes by "po' boy," "po-boy," or the original, "poor boy." In the summer of 1929, 1,100 New Orleans streetcar conductors went on strike with the support of the city residents. Strikebreakers were sent in to bust picket lines. A crowd of 10,000 New Orleanians gathered to cheer on strikers.

Two brothers named Bennie and Clovis Martin, Cajun who used to work on the streetcars, sent a letter of support to the union pledging free meals to union members. They followed through on their promise, giving out large sandwiches to any strikers that came by their shop, commenting to each other "here comes another poor  boy" whenever one walked through the door. To maximize the food load, they worked with an Italian baker, John Gendusa, to come up with a rectangular sandwich loaf more efficient than the tapering baguette. The name then spread and history was made. 

 The term spukie ("spukkie" or "spuckie") is unique to the city of Boston and derives from the Italian word spuccadella, meaning "long roll". The word spuccadella is not typically found in Italian dictionaries, which may suggest that it could be a regional Italian dialect, or possibly a Boston Italian-American innovation. Spukie is typically heard in parts of Dorchester and South Boston. Some bakeries in Boston's North End neighborhood have homemade spuccadellas for sale 

Wedge or Wedges: This is only familiar to natives of Westchester County, NY, and Fairfield County, CT, the two counties directly north of New York City. Some sources indicate the name is based on a diagonal cut in the middle of the sandwich, or a wedge cut out of the top half to make more room for fillings. A better story is "wedge" is just short for "sandwich," and comes from a Yonkers deli whose Italian owner got tired of saying the whole word. 

 In the same way we call any adhesive tape “Scotch tape” and any tissue a “Kleenex,” many New Jerseyans have taken to calling a sub a “blimpie.” The sandwich chain Blimpie got its start in Hoboken and named its sandwiches for blimps to indicate that they’d be bigger and better than the typical sub. The quintessential blimpie is stacked with Italian meats and cheeses.