The Po'Boy

The po'boy was born from the 1929 New Orleans streetcar strike. Benny and Clovis Martin — former streetcar conductors who had opened a restaurant and sandwich shop on St. Claude Avenue — fed striking workers for free during the four-month walkout. When a striker walked in, someone would call out "Here comes another poor boy" — and the name attached itself permanently to the sandwich they served: fried seafood or roast beef on French bread, long enough to feed a working man, cheap enough to give away. The Martin brothers' act of solidarity created a sandwich, a name, and a New Orleans institution in a single gesture. The bread — specifically New Orleans French bread — is the defining element and the reason the sandwich cannot be replicated elsewhere.

A long sandwich on New Orleans French bread — the bread that distinguishes a po'boy from every other sandwich in America. New Orleans French bread has a shattering, paper-thin crust and an interior so airy and soft it compresses almost to nothing when you bite down, allowing the filling to dominate while the bread provides crunch and structure without competing. The filling is either fried (oyster, shrimp, catfish, soft-shell crab) or roast beef "dressed" (lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayonnaise). "Dressed" means with everything. Ordering undressed means bread and filling only.

A po'boy is a complete meal. What goes alongside: a bag of Zapp's potato chips (another Louisiana institution — Voodoo flavour or Crawtator), a cold Barq's root beer or an Abita beer, and nothing else. The po'boy does not want a side salad, a cup of soup, or an appetiser. It wants to be eaten standing up, sitting on a kerb, or in the front seat of a car.