Ode to a Meatball Sub

by Micho Matuszewski

To determine the “perfect” food is no easy task. It's contentious, everyone has their own opinion, their own memories, their own biases. However, there are a few universal rules, I think, which a “perfect” food must pass to be considered as such.

The first is that it has to be a food that the person would almost never pass up except under the most extreme of circumstances—it is typically considered impolite to eat even the most perfect of foods during a funeral service, for example.

The second is that it needs to be something the person is almost ashamed to admit is their favorite food. It might be because it's associated with some secret memory or forgotten person, or because it drastically defies expectations, like the late Anthony Bourdain’s deep-held love for the fluorescent KFC mac n’ cheese.

The final, and to me most crucial, rule is that above all the food must give a feeling of comfort to the person. Lots of foods are comforting, but to be a “perfect” food, the first feeling you have to get when eating it is that warm wave of comfort derived from the long-held familiarity and love that is for whatever reason associated with that food.

For me, there is only one food that checks all three boxes: the meatball sub.

The meatball sub is, to me, such a perfect food that I don’t think I have ever turned one down when offered to me (except when I was younger and feigned being too good for its greasy wonders). The pillowy meatballs—sometimes pork, sometimes a mixture of meats, or even vegetarian—with thick marinara and melty mozzarella hotter than molten metal all held together by what is simultaneously the crunchiest and softest bread you will ever eat. It’s a combination that's so simple and straightforward, but at the same time so perfect because of this simplicity.

Frankly, the quality of the meatball sub has very little to do with my enjoyment of it. I have had a deliciously-crafted lamb meatball sub from a small café near my apartment that was a taste sensation, but speaking honestly, it gave me no more or less enjoyment than a slightly soggy, partly un-melted footlong meatball sub from Subway. It is not the quality of the ingredients, but instead their confluence in the form of the sub, that makes them perfect to me.

That a meatball sub is my perfect food will probably surprise most people who know me relatively well. Not because I have ever openly ranted against the meatball sub in an effort to disguise my secret love for them, much like Squidward with the Krabby Patty; nor because it's tied to a secret memory I have never shared; but rather because it doesn’t necessarily fit in with my other favorite foods.

Having grown up with an Italian mother from Naples, Italy, I was from an early age surrounded with delicious, authentic, Southern Italian food. Everything from perfectly-layered eggplant parmigiana or Neapolitan ragu simmered for an entire Sunday to the simplest spaghetti pomodoro was laid in front of me daily my entire life, and because of that my taste for Italian food is very much based in traditional Neapolitan cooking. Suffice it to say that the Italian-American meatball sub did not land on my table very often. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Italian-American cooking, but since I had this abundance of Neapolitan food always in front of me—much of which I continue to cook for myself now that I live on my own—I don’t think my Italian relatives would entirely understand my affinity for the meatball sub: an affinity I tried to shun for a period of my life, but that eventually outgrew my pride.

It's hard for me to explain the comfort that I get from a meatball sub. As I just explained, they weren’t exactly a part of my childhood (at least not at my home dinner table), but regardless it bestows upon me a feeling akin to sitting next to a fire with a hot cup of something after being stuck in freezing rain. The only distinct memory I have of meatball subs comes from getting them every now and then at the Subway in my childhood hometown of Stafford, Virginia, usually as a lunch to eat after hours of swimming at the public pool during long hot southern summer days. I remember one particular time one of the meatballs slipped out and landed on my swim trunks, leaving a big round red circle of marinara sauce. After retrieving and eating the fallen meatball, the thought popped into my head that if I jumped into the pool the water and chlorine would probably clean the sauce off pretty well, maybe even before it stained. I quickly jumped in, swam for a minute, climbed back out and delightfully discovered that there was no stain. Pleased with myself and my quick problem solving, I returned to my sub, which only tasted better.

Maybe the subs remind me of a time where my biggest problem was accidentally getting a stain on my swimming trunks. Maybe they remind me of the “pizza burgers” (French bread rolls with ground beef and jarred pasta sauce topped with mozzarella) my dad would make for me and my sister if my mom was away on a business trip. Maybe they, by form alone, remind me of the countless times a plate of meatballs with crusty bread given to me by my mom made sad days better. Maybe they’re just tasty. But most probably it is all those and more reasons unknown to me. Most probably, the meatball sub is just perfect.