Po' Boy

The Po' Boy was invented in 1929 in New Orleans by Bennie and Clovis Martin, two former streetcar conductors turned restaurant owners. When the city's streetcar workers went on strike, the Martin brothers pledged to feed the strikers for free. They worked with local baker John Gendusa to create a long, rectangular loaf of French bread with even ends, a shape that maximized filling and minimized waste, and stuffed it with leftover roast beef and gravy. Whenever a striker walked into the restaurant, one of the brothers would call out, Here comes another poor boy. The sandwich and the name stuck. The strike ended after months of unrest, but the Martin Brothers Restaurant kept serving Po' Boys, and the format spread through New Orleans neighborhoods. Within a decade, fried oyster, fried shrimp, and fried catfish versions had joined roast beef as the city's default Po' Boy fillings, each tucked into Gendusa-style French bread.

The Po' Boy is the sandwich of New Orleans in the way the bagel is the bread of New York, woven into the daily life of the city. It's eaten at corner restaurants, at oyster bars, on parade routes, and at the annual Oak Street Po-Boy Festival in November, which draws tens of thousands of people for a single day of sandwich-focused excess. The standard order is dressed, meaning lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mayo. The bread matters as much as the filling: New Orleans French bread has a paper-thin, shattering crust and a soft, almost cottony interior, a result of the city's particular humidity and the bakers who've perfected the recipe over a century. A Po' Boy on the wrong bread is just a sandwich.