Po' boy

This article is about a traditional sandwich. For other uses, see Poor Boy (disambiguation).

Po' boy

Shrimp po' boy
Origin
Alternative name(s)	po-boy po boy poor boy
Place of origin	United States
Region or state	Louisiana
Details
Main ingredient(s)	Multiple
Variations	Multiple

A po' boy (also po-boy, po boy, or poor boy) is a traditional submarine sandwich from Louisiana. It almost always consists of meat, usually roast, or seafood, usually fried, served on baguette-like New Orleans French bread, known for its crisp crust yet fluffy center.

Preparation

A key ingredient that differentiates po' boys from other submarine sandwiches is the bread. Typically, the French bread comes in two-foot-long "sticks". Standard sandwich sizes might be a half po' boy, about six inches long (called a "Shorty") and a full po' boy, at about a foot long. The traditional versions are served hot and include fried chicken breast, shrimp, and oysters. Soft shell crab, catfish, crawfish, Louisiana hot sausage, roast beef and gravy, and French fries are other common variations.

A "dressed" po' boy has lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise; pickles and onion are optional. Non-seafood po' boys will also usually have mustard; the customer is expected to specify "hot" or "regular"—the former being a coarse-grained Creole mustard (such as that produced by Zatarain's) and the latter being American yellow mustard.

The New Orleans roast beef po' boy is generally served hot with gravy and resembles a Chicago Italian beef sandwich in appearance and method of preparation, although the size, bread, and toppings differ. To make it, a cut of beef (usually chuck or shoulder) is typically simmered in beef stock with seasonings such as garlic, pepper, thyme, and bay for several hours. The beef can be processed into "debris" by cutting it to shreds when done (folklore says that a po' boy roast is done when it "falls apart with a hard stare") and simmering the shredded beef in the pot for a longer time to absorb more of the juice and seasoning.

The sandwich was featured on the PBS special Sandwiches That You Will Like.

Etymology

There are countless stories as to the origin of the term po' boy. One theory claims that "po' boy" was coined in a New Orleans restaurant owned by Benny and Clovis Martin (originally from Raceland, LA), a former streetcar conductor. In 1929, during a four-month strike against the streetcar company, Martin served his former colleagues free sandwiches. Martin’s restaurant workers jokingly referred to the strikers as "poor boys", and soon the sandwiches themselves took on the name. In Louisiana dialect, this is naturally shortened to "po' boy."

One restaurant in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, Trapani's, insists that the name "po' boy" came from a sandwich shop in New Orleans. If one was new to a bar and bought a nickel beer, then he got a free sandwich thrown in. This was sometimes called a "poor boy's lunch", which came to mean just the sandwich itself.^{[citation needed]}

New Orleans

The national and international reputation of New Orleans cooking is largely based on its grand restaurants (see Louisiana Creole cuisine)^{[citation needed]}. But it is the po' boy that has had the greatest day-to-day impact on the local diet, even in the era of modern fast food. Many people still have it at least once or twice a week—it is eaten for lunch more than any other single dish. Po' boys are made at home, sold pre-packaged in convenience stores, available at deli counters and make up a sizable percentage of the menu options at most neighborhood restaurants.^{[citation needed]}

The most basic New Orleans restaurant is the po' boy shop. In theory, it need not be much different than a sandwich shop in any other city, with little or no on-premise cooking. The debris gravy for roast beef needs to be kept hot, but that could be done in an electric warmer.

But these same basic offerings were also available at most corner grocery stores. Thus the next step up for a shop was to offer seafood po' boys and this meant having a stove (or fryer) and having someone who could fry seafood. And if you were frying fish, shrimp, and oysters for sandwiches, it did not take much extra to fry them for seafood plates. And if you had a stove for cooking seafood, it did not take much extra to also offer red beans and rice and jambalaya. Many of the classic New Orleans neighborhood restaurants are in this mold offering po' boys, seafood platters, and a number of basic Creole dishes: Tracie's, Parkway Bakery, Maspero's, Liuzza's, Acme's, Domilise's, Parasol's, Frankie and Johnnie's, and Casamento's.

Variations

Authentic versions of Louisiana style po' boys can be found along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast—from Houston through the Florida panhandle. The term "po' boy" has spread further and can be found on the Southeastern seaboard and in California, but may refer to variations on the local submarine sandwich, perhaps made with fried shrimp or oysters.

In New Orleans a "Vietnamese Po' boy" is another name for a Bánh mì sandwich. This variation can be found throughout the city owing to the influence of Vietnamese immigrants, who brought with them Vietnamese-French bakeries.

See also

• Muffaletta
• Louisiana Creole cuisine

External links

• Leidenheimer Baking Company's History of the po' boy
• What goes in a po' boy?
• The closing of Uglesich's
• New Orleans Po-Boy Preservation Festival
• New Orleans PoBoy Shop in Washington, D.C.