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Papua New GuineaFlavors · New Orleans
New Orleans sandwich made on the local French bread, with a thin, crisp crust, filled with fried shrimp or oysters, roast beef with gravy, or other fillings. The name is linked to the 1929 streetcar operators’ strike.
Traditional dish from New Orleans, Luisiana
Also known as: po-boy, poor boy, po boy
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Po' boy — New Orleans, the United States
The po' boy is the everyday sandwich in New Orleans. What defines it is the bread: a long French roll with a very thin crust that flakes when you bite and a light crumb, made by bakeries in the city itself. The best-known fillings are fried shrimp, fried oysters and shredded roast beef in its own gravy, but there are po' boys with fish, sausage, ham and many other fillings.
The most told story connects the name to 1929. Brothers Bennie and Clovis Martin, former streetcar operators from Raceland in the state interior, had run a café at the French Market since 1922. When the operators went on strike in July of that year, the brothers offered to feed the strikers and, according to the account, would say to each man who arrived: here comes another poor boy. The term transferred to the sandwich and began to appear in newspapers and menus in the early 1930s. Historians note that this version was published only decades later and that French-roll sandwiches already existed earlier.
Ordering a po' boy dressed means with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayonnaise; without that, it comes with just the filling. The roast beef version tends to drip gravy and release flakes of meat from cooking, called debris, and calls for a napkin.
Neighborhood sandwich shops, bars and fish markets serve po' boys throughout the city, whole or halved, wrapped in paper. New Orleans even has a festival dedicated to the sandwich.
New Orleans , Luisiana
New Orleans sandwich whose name is linked to the 1929 streetcar operators’ strike.
New Orleans French roll; fried shrimp, oysters or fish, or roast beef with gravy; for the dressed version, lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayonnaise.
By hand, whole or halved, wrapped in paper; the roast beef one needs a napkin.
Everyday lunch, year-round.
Your questions
It means with lettuce, tomato, pickles and mayonnaise. Without that, the sandwich comes with just the filling.
The most common version says that during the 1929 streetcar operators’ strike, the Martin brothers fed the strikers and called each man a poor boy. The name transferred to the sandwich.
Fried shrimp, fried oysters and roast beef with gravy. There are also fish, sausage and ham versions.
Flavors of the United States
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Creamy seafood soup with potato, onion and salt pork, thickened with milk or cream. It’s the dish most associated with Boston and the New England coast, and it’s usually served with small salted crackers.
Rare roast beef sandwich on kummelweck roll, topped with coarse salt and caraway, with horseradish and the roll dipped in the roast jus. It’s a tavern specialty from Buffalo, older than the chicken wings.
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Slow-roasted pork over a wood fire, chopped or pulled and seasoned with a vinegar-and-pepper sauce. In the eastern part of the state the whole hog is roasted; in the Piedmont, the shoulder is used, with a sauce that includes a little tomato.
Creamy Charleston soup made with blue crab meat and the female’s roe, which give it an orange color and the dish its name; finished with a little sherry. The version that includes roe is attributed to William Deas, a cook for a local family, in the early 20th century.
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New Orleans cocktail with rye whiskey or cognac, sugar and the bitter created by Antoine Amédée Peychaud, served in a glass scented with absinthe and a lemon peel. It is the city’s official cocktail by a 2008 state law.
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Pastrami sandwich: cured, seasoned and smoked beef, hot-sliced on rye bread with mustard. It’s the sandwich of New York’s Jewish delicatessens.
Buttery New Mexico cookie, traditionally made with lard, scented with anise and rolled in sugar and cinnamon. It has been the state cookie since 1989, the first official state cookie in the United States.
Hamburger topped with melted cheese and roasted, chopped New Mexico green chile. The state’s official tourism promotes a trail of restaurants that serve it, and several towns claim to have created it.
Clam and potato chowder in a tomato broth, with bacon and the sweet heat of datil pepper. A family recipe from descendants of Menorcan settlers in Saint Augustine.
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Carne asada burrito with French fries inside, cheese, pico de gallo, sour cream and guacamole. San Diego’s tourism authority presents it as a creation of the city from the 1980s.
Beef barbecue seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic and roasted over oak coals, served with pinquito beans, salsa, toasted bread and salad. The Santa Maria Valley chamber of commerce registered the menu in 1978.
Stew of fish and seafood in a tomato-and-wine broth, created in the 19th century by Italian fishermen, mostly from Genoa, on the San Francisco pier. It is served with bread for dipping into the broth.
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Low St. Louis cake with a dense, buttery base and a moist, sticky topping of butter, sugar and eggs, dusted with powdered sugar. Local tradition attributes it to a baker’s mistake in the 1930s.
Ravioli filled with meat, breaded and fried until crisp, served with grated Parmesan and a tomato sauce for dipping. It originated in the Italian restaurants of the The Hill neighborhood in St. Louis around the 1940s.
Cuban sandwich made with Cuban bread, roasted pork, ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard, pressed on a griddle. In Tampa it also includes salami. The City Council declared it the city’s signature sandwich in 2012.
Whiskey made in Tennessee with at least 51% corn, filtered through sugar maple charcoal before aging in new toasted oak barrels. A 2013 state law defines what may use that name.
Texas barbecue centers on smoked beef brisket as its main dish: seasoned only with salt and black pepper, cooked for many hours in wood smoke and sliced, served on butcher paper with bread, pickles and onion.
Thick stew of chicken, lima beans, corn and tomato, cooked for hours in iron pots. The Virginia General Assembly points to Brunswick County as the place of origin, in a long-standing dispute with Georgia.
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