My Five Favorite Subway Sandwiches

“I think I’m going to Subway.”

“You’re going to take the Subway?”

“No, I’m going to the Subway sandwich emporium.”

A conversation between Ben Morse and Rickey Purdin on Monday, November 7, 2011. Ben ended up going to Qdoba after all.

When last we left my saga with the Subway sandwich chain (Eat Fresh), the relationship was anything but healthy. I went on at length ruminating about the pangs of loss I felt from a childhood filled with bread cut from the top that gave way to an adult life consumed by rolls sliced in the traditional fashion. I had forsaken Subway, preferring to find my heroes (double meaning) across the counters of non-chain delis and the like.

But things change.

Primarily, I remained working in New York City on a regular basis where I realized that there are more Subways than there are trashcans, foot long sandwiches cost five dollars, and most delis charge like $30 for a pickle.

Also, I am told Subway is relatively healthy (by everybody except Dave Paggi and Ryan Penagos, who are food snobs).

So my love affair with Subway resumed, and I must say, while the passionate romance of my younger years may have subsided, a sensible and mutually beneficial adult relationship has taken its place.

To celebrate this renewed union, my five favorite Subways subs of yesteryear and today(year).

HONORABLE MENTION: Old School Steak & Cheese
The only sub that could lure occasionally me away from the Meatball when I was a kid (keep reading) was the Steak & Cheese. However, I remember the halcyon days where the steak was practically shredded as opposed to the cubes or uniformly sliced strips they use now; a sad loss.

Cold Cut Combo
The Cold Cut Combo is where I go once in a blue moon when I really want to let my hair down and go wild. That turkey-based bologna is the key brother; I don’t think it’s on any other sandwich and it’s probably illegal in some countries. Don’t order a Cold Cut Combo unless you’re ready for an experience.

Subway Club
In the summer of 2004, I helped work pre-camp at my beloved Camp Frank A. Day up in East Brookfield, Massachusetts, which basically meant I spent my days mowing grass, repairing cabins, setting up docks and doing other manly tasks, then found myself more or less alone in a spooky cabin in the middle of the woods as soon as the sun went down. It was a 20 minute drive to civilization and the nearest non-mess hall food, so when I grabbed dinner, I needed to make it count. Enter the Subway Club, a mountainous concoction containing turkey, roast beef and ham that when supplemented with veggies and mayo could keep your belly full and your mind keen (I also got one of the local girls who worked the counter to give me her Subway visor). I haven’t had a Club in years, but it got me through some tough nights in the (relative) wilderness.

Meatball Marinara
A sentimental favorite, the Meatball sub from Subway (we didn’t use fancy terms like “Marinara” back in the 90’s) was a staple of my childhood. After basketball games on Saturday mornings (I was terrible at basketball and gave it up the minute I was old enough to wrestle, but my dad, bless him, held out hope during those early years), my father would take me by either Burger King or Subway to combat the physical fitness I had just taken part in, and if it was the latter, I always got a Meatball sandwich. It doesn’t rank higher at the moment because my two favorite components of the sub were the top cut bread which I’m complained about being gone already and coating it in American cheese that would melt right on. Time and lactose intolerance have robbed me of these simple pleasures, but I’ll still fire up a cheese-less Marinara now and again for old time’s sake.

Black Forest Ham
My favorite option at the moment off the $5 Foot Long menu. As I have already mentioned several times already, I am lactose intolerant, meaning I need to find sandwiches that can give me that hit of flavor even when devoid of cheese, mustard or mayo (I think I can actually have the latter two, but I don’t, because I’m paranoid). Ham is nice and salty with a kick if done right (and Subway does everything right), so you don’t need to rely on dressing for flavor. Throw some lettuce, cucumbers, pickles and black olives on for added value and nutrition or whatever, toast the bun and singe the meat a bit, and you’ve got an ideal lunch for your hungry comic book web site editor on the go.

Roast Beef
For years, I struggled with the fact that I love to eat hamburgers and would gladly have them for lunch, but for the most part they are too heavy/filling for me to go back to work after having, and thus I relegated them to dinners and special occasions. Imagine my joy at experiencing the revelation about 20 years after most do that a roast beef sandwich is essentially a hamburger you can eat without resulting fullness-induced lethargy! The Subway near the Marvel offices slings a mean Roast Beef foot long, and you can further simulate the burger experience by topping it with lettuce, pickles and ketchup (I don’t like tomatoes on my burgers/roast beef sandwiches, that’s what the ketchup is for) and making sure the bun is nice and toasted. I also get black olives because I love black olives. This is my current go-to when I’ve got enough to splurge outside the $5 menu (during October, it was Anytober, where all foot longs were $5, including the Roast Beef—it was glorious) and thus at the moment it tops the list.

Breaking Subway News Update!

No doubt you all recall my epic expose on the history of the Subway sandwich chain. Well, earlier today, I received the follow communique from my former intern, Frank DeAngelo (pictured to the left), rock star and member of the band Modern Hearts Break Faster (EP available now)...

Hey Ben,

I was just reading through your blog and I saw your entry about Subway. From 2002-2004, my band was sponsored by Subway (like sponsored-sponsored: free subways at all locations, they bought us a van, new equipment, paid for our cell phones and gas -- all we had to do was play under some "Subway" banners sometimes and sign autographs at their booths at music festivals).

Anyway, I got to know one of their VPs very well, who was also in charge of marketing, and variety of other stuff (he actually designed their logo, too).

One day, I brought up the "subway cut" to him, asking him why they changed it -- he told me a few things. First, it tested poorly in focus groups -- which I can't understand because its like the company's trademark thing that makes a subway sandwich, a subway sandwich. They said it was too messy (which I said was stupid because now with the new cut everything slips out the sliced side or the grinder breaks on the unsliced edge). And he and I went back and forth about this -- OK I know its ridiculous, these people were throwing money at me and this was my biggest concern with the company :) But also Subway was trying to create a new image, I was told, and that's when the logo because italicized, "eat fresh" was introduced, and to shake things up, the new cut was supposed to signal in the new "Subway."

...go figure...

Then the company instructed all franchises to do away with "subway cut" and told them to deny patrons if they requested it...

Well...this is truly disturbing and horrifying. It is disturbifying.

I don't know what kind of sick, hipster demographic actually enjoys this "new" Subway, but I would like to meet them and slap them all in the face with an OLD SCHOOL steak & cheese.

But hey, real talk: it's not their fault. The kids who have grown up in this totalitarian 1984-like Subway regime don't know what they're missing. It's the corporate fatcasts with their "focus groups" and their "eath fresh" who are keeping us all down. They're letting young men like Frank, who still has the temerity to use the term "grinder," suffer needlessly as their lettuce floods out the side of their Italian BMTs.

It's not right and it's not going unnoticed. The movement grows every day. You won't win this one, Jared.

Viva la revolucion!

Subway: The Fall of An Empire?

It took my father and I 14 years and the glorious limb-destroying sport of amatuer wrestling to realize that basketball was simply not for me. However, the highlight of those many Satudays mornings spent at the West Suburban YMCA in Newton, Massachusetts trying to shoot jump shots from under the overhanging track was--aside from quality time with my dad--trips to the Subway sandwich shop down the street for a well-earned lunch.

In those days before I had my own car, fast food was a commodity, not a thing of regularity, and Subway was definitely my sandwich purveyor of choice. While Highlands Pizza was tops for all things Italian, somehow their meatball subs could still not match up to the majesty of Subway. There was just something about the way the "sandwich artists" of West Newton put just the right amount of marinara on the meatballs, perfectly applied the American cheese, and spoiled me with black olives that added up to culinary heaven.

But without question the secret weapon of Subway was the one-of-a-kind "Subway cut" used to slice their warm, fluffy Italian rolls. Whereas the conventional sandwich maker slices down the middle on one side from one end of a roll to the other and then opens it up horizontally, Subway employees were taught to cut from above, remove a middle strip from the top of the bread, stuff the toppings inside, and then reapply the displaced cap creating something was really more of a sandwich/calzone hybrid than merely a sub. Nobody could touch the "Subway cut."

During my counselor years at Camp Frank A. Day, nightly sojourns to the Leicester Subway made for a more steady diet of the good stuff than I'd had in my childhood years, but this was still a place where magic happened. Besides joining in the neverending game of trying to get the phone numbers of the girls working behind the counter (and winning more than once, I don't mind saying), I also expanded my horizons beyond the meatball sub, adding the Subway steak and cheese to my repetoire. I was really still too young to fully understand vegetables as anything more than the stuff off to the side of your plate, but the Subway steak and cheese gave me new appreciation for lettuce, tomatos, cucumbers and the occasional onion. But it was the thin-sliced, delectable steak piled high--along with the "Subway cut," of course--that made the sandwich.

While in college, my friend Jordan Geary and I would celebrate Wednesday, the greatest day of the week, by heading into New London for the first two parts of our personal holy trinity of purchasing new comics at Sarge's and paying a visit to the local Subway before heading back to school to take in the afternoon rerun of Melrose Place on E! If I recall correctly, Jordan favored the chicken parm, while I stuck to my meatball/steak and cheese rotation with a dedicated fervor.

However, at some point during my late college years, something went horribly wrong.

It began with Jared. You know Jared: the guy who lost all the weight eating Subway from the commercials. Now I had no problem knowing that Subway wasn't going to kill me, but this was my semi-guilty pleasure; I didn't want to be told it was GOOD for me. And just the fact that Subway now had a national commercial campaign (and lame "Eat Fresh" slogan) stripped away the mystique of my favorite eatery.

But that was only the first of the awful changes to come. The next was a blanket switch of meats that led to the replacement of thin-sliced steak with ghastly steak chunks! And they needed to be microwaved! I gave the "new" steak and cheese the old college try, but once was enough to see it was dead to me. At least I still had my beloved meatball.

Then...the unthinkable happened.

An edict came down from somewhere on high (from Jared? Figurehead or puppet master? We may never know) banning the "Subway cut"! The one thing that separated Subway from all other peddlers of sandwich goods, that which lifted them up where they belonged (much as love does), was gone. I could see the dignity begin stripped from my beloved sandwich artists as they were forced to eschew their hard-practiced skills for the simple clean cut traditional method. For a time, I was able to coerce some traditionalists to continue cutting "old school" for me, but these stalwarts were quickly wiped out and deprogrammed.

The summer of 2004, following my graduation from college, I relocated several days a week to East Brookfield, MA and Camp Frank A. Day, where I did grunt work setting up the camp before the staff or campers got there. Without companionship, I attempted to rekindle my passion for Subway with mixed results. I could never truly enjoy a meatball sub or steak and cheese again with the knowledge of what I'd so recently lost fresh in my mind, but I opened myself up to new options such as the Subway Club, which I could experience without any tainted memories of superior product. Nonetheless, it was hard to watch these wet behind the ears pups who had never learned the true way to produce a Subway sandwich stumbling behind the counter of my former shrine to tasty goodness.

After moving to New York, I would frequent the Subway along Route 17 semi-regularly, generally purchasing the Subway Club and remembering better days. The chicken/bacon/ranch melt provided a brief renaissance, but could not hold my interest.

And that brings us to the present, and my residence in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, pearl of the East. There is a Subway down the street from us and I make frequent use of it. For a good while, the lack of the Subway I remembered was offset by the presence of a kindly man with a wonderful moustache who worked nearly every night and who always wore a smile. His expertise and dedication to the Subway Club, Italian BMT and even the meatball sub was a rare shining moment in a regime that had long since fallen from its glory days.

Sadly, my friend at Subway disappeared a few months ago, leaving my sandwiches in the hands of a generation who probably wouldn't understand the "Subway cut" if I drew them a diagram. I had a Subway Club tonight that I was actually enjoying until I became disgusted with how low my standards have become.

So this is my challenge to you, Subway workers of America: look to your past to build your future. $5 Footlongs are not the answer; the answer is seeking out those pioneers who built your proud franchise in the lean days and learning all you can from them. They were exemplary in a time when the words "mediocrity" and "Subway" simply did not go together under any circumstances. Lean "the cut." Bring back the good steak. I beg you to restore your empire to glory.

Otherwise, I'm going to Quizno's.