May 2011. Finding the perfect deli meat cocktail

The whole process of getting a sandwich at Pocorello’s can be a little daunting to the deli novice. First of all, you either need cash or must get a voucher receipt from the ATM at the front. Then you weave through the crowded glut of tables, all filled with merry regulars taking potshots at each other and toasting those that came before them. You likely will not exactly know where the line starts, and since it really doesn’t start anywhere per se, just get up there. Then there are the dazzling permutations on their menu behind the counter, so expansive that it spills over to sideboards and hanging signs. Most folks opt for the muffuletta, I expect, just because it is an easily-chosen default (and a good one), but like any deli enthusiast or pharmaceutical abuser will tell you, knowing one’s particular cocktail is key to the enjoyment of one’s habit. I ask for the Italian, a muffuletta served on their perfect crust po-boy bread and ask to add some soppressata. The man behind the counter stops short and looks back with a little suspicion. “Where you from up north that you know about soppressata?” I tell him, “I’ve been around.”

My deli experience was borne out of living in the Midwest where they just don’t have the same embrace of the sandwich as an art form as we do down here in the po-boy belt; and really were it not for the Italian delis, I might have forsaken the idea of too much bread and too much meat equaling too much happiness.
Pocorello’s has that equation covered. The aforementioned Italian has just the right tang of olives countered by the saltiness of the meat and the fatty richness of the soppressata and enough bread to absorb it all. I love a muffuletta now and then, and while I dig the groovy round loaf and the idea that it is a pie made into a sandwich, I find them to be overwhelming, a riot of olives. My wife is no olive fan so I opted to bring her home the Hoagie, a veritable truckload of ham, Genoa salami, chopped onions, provolone, and capicola—a dry cured, thin cut Calabrian cold cut from the shoulder of the pig, it offers a sweet richness that is essential to counter the saltier meats—all drenched in seasoned olive oil on a loaf as big as your forearm. Advice for the future: eat the Hoagie there; it becomes something of a soggy mess after it travels.

Pocorello’s established itself as the real deal with the accoutrements: the little amaretto cookies that taste like sugar cones, San Pellegrino Limonata in the tiny bottles and tiramisu that comes off slightly toasted on top, invoking a perfect morning of cappuccino and waffles with each bite.

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