Longshadow wrote:
I've seen them called gyros also, but to me a gyro is a Greek sandwich with a totally different meat and tzatziki sauce, among other things.
Yes. A Gyro is a totally different thing - the origin story is that non-Greek sandwich shops, delis, and markets began making long sandwiches and the name "hero" fell into general use as a mispronounced version of Gyro. It's unlikely, because real Greek gyros were virtually unknown until the late 50s and 60s in the US, and "hero" is of much earlier origin. I'm more inclined to believe the "you have to be a hero to finish one" explanation. Here's a link to the earliest use of the term - it's a New Yawk thing... Blogger Barry Popik gives Dagwood as a name for a long sandwich, but I always thought of a Dagwood as being served on regular bread, just piled very high, like Dagwood used to eat in the comic Blondie.
Quote:
The long list of the names of sandwiches served on long rolls includes blimpie, bomber, Cuban (medianoche), Dagwood, garibaldi, gondola, grinder, hoagie, Italian, jawbreaker, muffuletta, peacemaker (La Mediatrice), pilgrim, pistolette, po' boy (poor boy), rocket, skyscraper, spiedie, spucky (spuckie, spukie), submarine (sub), torpedo, torta (Mexican po' boy), wedge and zeppelin (zep).
I'd never heard "Bomber", "Rocket", or "Pilgrim" before....