When you come to Pittsburgh...

When you come here, everyone will tell you ‘Yinz guys have to eat at Primanti’s n’at!’ To be sure, Primanti Brothers is a uniquely Pittsburgh institution: a restaurant which, for years, thrived as an open secret – serving its distinctive sandwiches-with-fries-and-slaw as lunch to the workaday world downtown, late night snacks to the bar and club crowd, and that unnamed, pre-dawn meal to the produce vendors and truck drivers who came to work in the Strip District around 3:30 a.m. As Pittsburgh has evolved, and the Strip has transformed into a destination, so has Primanti’s. It’s crowded more often than not these days, full of touristy people trying to figure out a menu which changes so rarely that it’s painted on the wall. (It's also expanding, with satellite locations all around the area.) 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Primanti’s. But I would like to give a little shout out to what I think is Pittsburgh’s most significant contribution to the sandwich world:

I present, for your consideration, the Hoagie.

Philadelphians take credit for the genesis of this culinary contribution to our culture, but they can’t seem to figure which creation story to pronounce as true; if you believe Wikepedia, the Hoagie showed up in Pittsburgh around 1961 (the sandwiches, not the Philadephians); I wasn’t there, so I don’t know. For the uninitiated, a ‘Hoagie’ is a subset within the loaf-of-bread genus of sandwiches. Take a twelve, fourteen or sixteen inch loaf of Italian bread, sliced long ways, add Italian cold cuts, shredded Italian cheese, oil and vinegar. So far, it sounds just like what the rest of the world calls a ‘sub’ (and Philadelphia types call a hoagie). AHHHH, but then you take that lowly sub and throw it in a pizza oven for 10-15 minutes, garnish with shaved lettuce, tomatoes and thin sliced onions, an’at dere is a Hoagie!

The Hoagie was my childhood feast, my perennial picnic choice; it was how my high school marching band raised money, and the one thing I try not to miss when I come home. And the beauty of it is, you can get one just about anywhere! It is an open source sandwich – a specialty in almost every pizza shop in the city. I happen to think the best Hoagies come from Danny’s on Library Road in Bethel Park, but I could be wrong.  If you get to Pittsburgh, try Primanti’s – but check out a Hoagie, too.