Offbeat Eats

I always enjoyed sub sandwiches growing up. Some meat, veggies, and cheese on a good Italian sub roll, and I’m ready to go. It’s really not a difficult concept, but as I’ve learned in my many years living in different states, and traveling around, there’s actually an art form to making a decent sub. It’s an art hasn’t been discovered everywhere, since several places I’ve lived (Michigan, Tennessee, and Minnesota, in particular) had items called subs, that while often decent, weren’t really in the same category as a proper Italian sub. The meat wouldn’t be right (Oscar Meyer ham does not a good sub make). And most importantly, a good sub also requires the right bread (and half of my challenge of making my own subs has been finding decent bread!). For a good sub, however, the best action is the middle eastern seaboard. New Jersey is well-recognized as having good shops, as are Pennsylvania (see my recent review on Tony Luke’s; one thing the Italian-American bakers of Philly can do is a good roll) and Maryland. But the real gem is Delaware, and the home of truly good subs, IMHO, is actually Wilmington, Delaware. Wilmington is choc-a-bloc little Italian-run sub shops, and it’s really hard to get a bad sub in that city. Unfortunately, I didn’t stop in Wilmington this trip. But luckily, Capriotti’s, one of Wilmington’s best-regarded sub shops, has an outpost in Rehoboth Beach…