Last night’s pilgrimage for the most mysterious sandwich in Brooklyn — Artichoke Parmigiana from Mama Louisa’s Hero Shoppe — was prompted by a story in Bon Appétit magazine.
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/artichoke-parm-history-new-york
Besides culinary notes, the story has a good deal of New York history packed along a bready hero. It walks you from early 1900s Italian immigrants of a Brooklyn area known back then as Pigtown for pigs roaming the farmland. Those were the settlers who started the now-indispensable “parm” trend, moved that trend from a plate to in-between-the-bread-slices for easier handling and, on Fridays, started substituting meat with eggplant and artichokes to accommodate Catholic customs of no meat on Fridays.
We took a 2-train to Sterling Street and with the sandwich which recipe has beed guarded since 1950s in hand walked over to Brower Park where we split it on the bench accompanied by a distant rumbling of thunder.
The sandwich held a mix of two classics — marinara and mozzarella, plus two unconventionalities — roasted artichoke hearts and scrambled eggs. Creamy from cheese, tangy with artichokes which flavor was enhanced by baking, with a light touch of tomato sauce, not a drop of stuffing spilled out of pillow soft bread that held surprisingly strong crust on the outside.
https://www.seamless.com/menu/mama-louisas-hero-shop-609-new-york-ave-brooklyn/314964
And what followed our lunch with a touch of history was an appropriate five-mile stroll through Brooklyn neighborhoods: from East Flatbush, through Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant to Williamsburg.
