As a lifelong New Yorker and half Italian, I thought I knew all the Italian parm hero sandwiches within the five boroughs. There were pillars holding up parm culture— chicken, eggplant, veal, meatball, topped with sauce and cheese and stuffed on hero bread that was both crusty and soft. I’d eaten them as treats at my local pizza place for good report cards, and ordered platters of these delights at restaurants named for them. When it came to parms, I thought I knew it all and saw it all.
Then one day last spring I stepped inside a Brooklyn deli I’d never been to before. And there, listed between a pastrami and an eggplant parmigiana, I saw a sandwich I’d never heard of: an artichoke parmigiana.
The sandwich in question was at Mama Louisa’s Hero Shoppe in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. With a handwritten menu and a sign with a drawing of a chef, it felt familiar, though it was my first time there. There was one other customer inside with me that Saturday, and I spun toward him. “Artichoke parm!” I said. “I’ve never seen that before! Have you?” He smiled, and assured me it was good. It was only $9 for a large hero, and I had to order it. Along with a more traditional Italian cold cut hero with prosciutto and capicola, the artichoke parm rode delicately in the passenger seat during my drive home to Queens.
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