Happy National Hoagie Day If That Is What You Call It

Cinco De Mayo is what May 5th is best known for.  But I am much more likely to celebrate another May 5th highlight.  It is National Hoagie Day and I will gladly participate but I won't be ordering a hoagie. I will be ordering a sub!  That brings up the question, what do you call this hero of a sandwich?

Since growing up in Mohawk, New York I was raised to enjoy the deliciousness of subs or submarine sandwiches, also an acceptable name.  This is all I knew and it stayed this way when I attended school at Syracuse University. Then my submarine sandwich world was turned upside down when I took my first radio job in Western Massachusetts.  I still remember one Saturday afternoon, I walked into a pizza/sub place and I ordered a sub.  The person working there quizzically stared at me and said do you mean a grinder?   A grinder?  I didn't want them to grind anything!  I just wanted my sub.

That eye-opening experience was part of a chapter that is long gone in my life as I accepted a job in Oneonta and was once again living large in a sub City.  All was good with the world until I entered a relationship with a woman that called New Jersey her home state.  Thru visits to the Princeton area I once again was out of my comfort zone and started craving something called a hoagie.  Call it what you will but I will stick with sub and have a turkey, provolone, banana peppers and mayo submarine sandwich on National Hoagie Day.