The New Orleans Style Poboy, aka Poor Boy
A bit of background:
The idea of the shepard's sandwich probably goes so far back into
history that they were around before sheep had been domesticated.
I doubt anyone with two IQ points to rub together actually thinks the
Earl of Sandwitch invented meat and vegitables tucked inside of
bread. The sandwich, shepard sandwich, gyros in pita, and poor
boy, or in Southern Louisiana - Poboy, all come from a common
need. A portable balanced meal.
A shepard cannot count on being able to sit down, light a fire and hang
out. Sheep are stupid gits. Picture 50 to 200 eight week
old puppies that can run at 20 to 30 miles an hour when spooked.
Want to know why wool is expensive? Try to keep one of these
moronic
belies with feet fed. Look, I had a drop-dead gorgeous girlfriend
once. Oh, good Lord, she was everyman's dream, but she came at a
price. I had to be willing to take over Daddy's 60,000 head
O'sheep ranch in Scottland, and be rich beyound my wildest dreams.
Sheep smell. I grew up on a farm. I eat lamb with a good
heart. They are a blight on mammelhood. What animal grazes
so deeply that they kill the plant they are feeding on except
sheep? What other animal has to have someone watching them 24x7
to keeping them from doing something stupid enough to die? We
should wear their wool and hide. We make better use of it.
An ant would make better use of it. Sheep are proof that man
should not tamper too much with God's creations. We have Mountain
Sheep in the wild that can survive in areas nothing else, not even
plants can live. Then we have the domestic sheep, that has two
skills, eating, and breathing. Without a human shepard to force
them, they wouldn't leave a blizzard to go into a warm barn. They
are almost as stupid as our modern teenagers.
Anyway, a man tasked with that sort of job needs a full meal, but it
has to be portable. Enter the sandwich. The
sheppard's sandwich is not too far removed from the N'awlin's
PoBoy sandwich. It is the same idea. A fully portable
meal. A tradesman lunch.
So, here we go.
Basic Definition: New Orleans Poor Boy - PoBoy is a contraction of
convenience due to an
artifact of our speech. Poor, in several dialects sounds more
like Po
<poh> than Poor. The tendancy in these dialects is to
dispence
with the pauses between words, and pause at the end of a
sentence. For
example: To express disbelief at a missed grounder to a short-stop, a
local elsewhere might say: Oh my God! He missed that one for
sure. How did he
let that happen? The coach is going to have words with him.
His
Mother and father cannot to be happy either. - If someone not from
Southern Louisiana happened to over-hear a Southern Louisiana speaker
say the same thing, that speech would sound more like this:
Ohmigaud, owdhidletthethapen? He dun-gone-thet-one fur-sur.
His
mom'n'em
gonna be some upset, yeah? Oh Good Lord,
save-him-sorry-butt-frum-de-coach-too, yeah?) Toss in some 14th
century
French and so 17th century German, and add the fact that 50% of the
people in this state cannot read or write English well enough to
complete a Job application and you begin to get a grasp on the language
issue.
New Orleans food blends Creole (European and African cum South American
Native traditions blended with African taking the lead using American
ingredients), Cajun (14th century French), Native American (you know,
like corn bread, sauted onions and garlic, stewing, slooooow cooking),
and German (sausage, pickling, salads, dill, salted meats, starches,
etc.) and melds them into a truly unique tradition of top notch
food. There really is no place on the planet that serves food
like New Orleans (N'awlins). Among the best of this humble, but
fantastic, food is the Roast Beef PoBoy.
There are two versions of the N'awlin's PoBoy, Dressed, and Undressed.
Dressed in Southern Louisiana means:
Mayonnaise
Mustard
Lettuce
Tomoato
Onions
Maybe Pickles
And possibly Ketchup, but not on a PoBoy
A proper New Orleans style PoBoy is always dressed. We grade them
by napkins. As in, how many napkins did you use while eating
it. Rafe's PoBoy Shop in Baker, Louisiana, and PoBoy Loyd's In
Baton Rouge make some of the best New Orlean's style Poboys you could
ever hope to eat. There were better places in New Orleans. but
the ones I knew well got bought and converted to things like the Hard
Rock Cafe. I understand you can still gat a
good one at R&O's on the lake shore, but their specialty is stuffed
artichokes, and that is all I ever eat there, so I couldn't tell you
anything about it.
A proper New Orleans PoBoy is served on a PoBoy bun (Sub to you
Yankees). The roast beef can be any cut you enjoy. The only
thing to remember
that it has to be cooked to fork tender. Traditionally a poboy
has
thinly sliced beef coated with gravy, but there is nothing wrong with
small chunks of
beef.
So, without further drivel:
New Orleans' Style
Roast Beef PoBoy
Ingredients:
* Thinly (not too thin though) sliced roast beef
* Fairly thick beef gravy - this should be fresh gravy from making the
roast - See my steak and gravy or Seven-Bone-Chuck Roast for tips.
* Fresh PoBoy buns. Toast on a grill to lightly brown just prior
to serving. The bun really makes or breaks this meal.
Benoit's Meat Block in Addis Louisiana would have the very best New
Orleans' style Roast Beef PoBoy in the world, except that their bread
is tough some times. Rafe's bread is better, and even though
Benoit's meat and gravy is a bit supeior, bread I can bite through makes the
difference. Don't get me wrong, Benoit's Meat Block's Roast Beef
PoBoy is fantastic, it just isn't in my top two. In my top five,
you bettcha. Their boudin, and hot sausage are the best. I
know people that drive in from out of state to get their sausage.
I wouldn't cross the Mississippi for their Poboy. I do cross it
for the sausage when relativs are coming in to town. Hwy 1, south
of Plaquemine, past Brusly. These buns should be crispey and
flakey on the outside, tender on the inside.
* Cheese of choice. Regular American or Provolone are good
choices - Nothing too sharp. Sharp cheeses do not melt well, so keep an
eye out.
* Dressings as mentioned before.
* Dressings, as mentioned above
Equipment:
* Tongs.
* chaffing dish, or something to keep the roast and gravy
warm. The roast should be swimming in the gravey prior to
sandwich preperation.
* Grill for the bun. A toaster will do in a pinch.
* Knife
* Plate
Preperation:
* Slow roast the beef, and make the gravy. (See my recipe on 7-Bone Chuck Roast
for ideas.) Left-overs are fine. The roast beef and gravy
needs to be almost too hot to eat. Thin slices works best, but
small tender chunks are OK too.
* Prepare the tomatoes, lettuce and onion. The tomatoes should be
ripe, not the platic garbage most stores sell. Fresh from the garden
makes a real difference! Slice the tomatoes fairly thin. I
recommend shredded lettuce. The onion should be as close to
paper-thin.
* Put out the cheese long enough before you assemble the sandwhich that
it almost comes to room-temperature. You want it to melt a bit in
the sandwhich.
* Toast the bread. If you have a waffle iron that has griddles
you can use, they do a great job. You need to use a bread that is
fresh, crispy and crunchy and crispy on the out side, and freshy and
chewy on the inside. A large French baguette works
perfectly. Try not to cut the bread completely apart.
* Open the baguette and put a thin coat of mayonnaise and mustard on
the top and bottom of the bread.
* Layer the roast beef onto the lower half of the bread. The beef
should be layered on thick, 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of it. Add extra
gravy now if you want it.
* Layer the cheese on top of the beef. It is easy to over-do the
cheese, one layer is plenty.
* Put a good thick layer of shreded lettuce over the cheese.
* Put a layer of onions over the lettuce.
* Put a layer or two of tomatoes atop the lettuce.
* Add the pickles if you want them.
* Salt and pepper to taste.
Suggested Sides:
Chips, Fries, potato salad, bar-b-q beans, and coleslaw.
Get a stack of napkins and enjoy.
courtesy of www.dougriddle.com
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