Heroes, Heros, and New York Times

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   You knew this was going to happen.  You know it's not going to be 
corrected.  Someone write in to the New York Times and, for a good laugh, ask for 
documentation.
  
  
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/15/dining/15HERO.html
Hey, Po' Boy, Meet Some Real Heroes

By ED LEVINE

Published: October 15, 2003

E are a city of heroes. The rest of the country may clamor for po' boys and 
hoagies, grinders, subs, wedges or torpedoes, but New York knows what really 
constitutes a gigantic sandwich, and what raises the hero above those 
pretenders; what makes it gastronomic royalty.

Let there be no misunderstanding by those who have never ventured to New 
York, or by those who have come lately, or by those who diet. The hero is a 
sandwich of cured Italian meats. These are layered into a forearm's length of fresh 
crusty bread, often with a few slices of Italian cheese and a condiment or two 
atop them — pepperoncini, yes; roasted peppers, yes; mayonnaise, an emphatic 
no. Also, perhaps, a splash of vinegar, certainly a drizzle of olive oil. Some 
ground pepper, a sprinkle of salt. But no more. No sun-dried tomatoes sully 
the interior of a true hero, no pesto, no Brie, no fancy pants ingredients at 
all.

A hero, at least for today, is cold. (We will return to the subject of hot 
heroes — your pillowy meatball sandwiches, mighty chicken parmigianas, lengths 
of hot sausage and pepper — at a later date.) It is made by Italians, most 
often, in family run stores, and is usually served wrapped in paper, to eat 
outside somewhere. A hero has working class origins. It is lunch in tubular form.

In 1936, Clementine Paddleford, the legendary food writer on The New York 
Herald Tribune, unwittingly named the sandwich, saying, "You'd have to be a hero 
to finish one."
(...)
  
   Heroes or Heros?
  
   Clementine Paddleford STARTED on the New Yprk Herald Tribune in 1936.  She 
did not name the sandwich in 1936, nor did she ever admit to naming the 
sandwich.
   As ADS-Lers may know, I went through every single Clementine Paddleford 
column in 1936...and 1937, and 1938, and 1939, and 1940, and 1941, and so on.  
It was extremely time-consuming.
   For all this work, I got paid nothing at all.  
   I found "hero" in the 1940s.
   I would write in to the New York TImes, but they still haven't printed 
even "the Big Apple" (which became a law, signed by the mayor), so what's the 
use?
   More parking tickets in a few minutes.  SOMEBODY PLEASE KILL ME!