Po’boy
A po’boy (also po-boy or po boy) is a classic Louisiana sandwich. It nearly always includes meat, such as roast beef, or fried seafood, such as shrimp, crawfish, fish, oysters, or crab. The meat is served atop French bread from New Orleans, which has a crisp surface and a fluffy middle.
Preparation
As long as the “po’boy bread” is used, a variety of fillings are acceptable, including roast beef, baked ham, fried shrimp, fried crawfish, fried catfish, Louisiana hot sausage, French fries, fried chicken, alligator, duck, boudin, and rabbit.
“Po’boy bread” is a regional French bread cooked with less wheat and more water than a typical baguette, resulting in a wetter dough that yields a lighter, fluffier loaf. The recipe was created in the 1700s in the Gulf South because the humid climate made it difficult to grow wheat, necessitating the importation of wheat flour, which was scarce.
Lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mayonnaise are all included in a “dressed” po’boy. Typically, melted butter and sliced pickle rounds are served with fried shrimp po’boys. It’s optional to use a Louisiana-style hot sauce. Non-seafood po’boys are frequently served with Creole mustard.
Aside from meat and seafood, cheese has been a popular element in sandwiches since the Great Depression, when the sandwich was first introduced (the year 1929).
Fried oyster po’boys are also known as “oyster loaf,” and they appear to have a different and longer history.
Thick chunks of beef are served with gravy in a New Orleans “sloppy roast beef” po’boy, or the meat is simmered down until blended with its sauce in a “CrockPot tender” manner, while thinner slices are dipped in beef jus in a third way. Garlic is a seasoning that can be used if desired. Roast beef po’boys are frequently served with “debris,” which is meat that falls to the bottom of the pan after cooking and is reduced into a near-gravy.
Etymology
In the late 1800s, fried oyster sandwiches on French baguettes were dubbed “oyster loaves” in New Orleans, a word that is still used today. A “peacemaker,” or La Médiatrice, is a sandwich that includes both fried shrimp and fried oysters.
According to one popular local version, the term “poor boy” (later “po’boy,” etc.) was coined in a New Orleans restaurant operated by Benjamin (“Benny”) and Clovis Martin, former streetcar conductors originating from Raceland, Louisiana. The Martins opened their restaurant in 1921, but it wasn’t until 1929 that John Gendusa’s bakery first prepared the bread for this sandwich. During a four-month strike against the streetcar company in 1929, the Martin brothers provided complimentary sandwiches to their former coworkers.