Local hero: Norristown's zep sandwich

In a crowded sandwich-eating world of hoagies, grinders, subs, heroes, and po'boys, Norristown's own zep flies somewhat beneath the radar.

But in certain quarters, the intensely local, seven-decade meat-on-a-roll tradition is so closely associated with its birthplace to qualify as the Montgomery County version of Proust's madeleine.

"You take any Norristown kid from the '50s and you give him now, 50 years later, a zep," said Jerry Spinelli, 68, a children's book author and Norristown native, "and he will be transported back to his hometown."

The spicy, tangy zep is, Spinelli and the partisans argue, distinct from anything else that comes over a sandwich-shop counter, though the difference is admittedly subtle. And, as with the cheesesteak, there are disputed origins, two time-honored flagship shops, and separate camps arguing over the "real" vendor of choice.

This is burdensome history for simple workingman's food - but then again, it's a heavy sandwich. Enough salami to cover a foot of wide, golden-crusted roll, enough provolone to cover the salami, thumb-thick chunks of raw onion and slabs of tomato across the whole thing. Add oregano, salt, pepper, and olive oil to taste. Hot pepper relish if desired. And that's it.

In a strict sense, the zep is little but a variation on the traditional hoagie, with no lettuce and only one meat. But don't talk it down in Norristown, where Katie Kohler describes the combination as a matter of local pride.

"I just gave you the recipe for one of the most famous sandwiches in the world," said Kohler, longtime sandwich-maker at Eve's Lunch, where zeps dominate the menu so heavily, there isn't a leaf of lettuce in the building.

Although the sandwich turns up on menus from Bridgeport to Phoenixville, the recognized epicenters of zep culture are both Norristown fixtures: Eve's, at 310 E. Johnson Highway, and Lou's, at 414 E. Main St.

Eve's, a bare-bones, tile-floored sandwich shop in a strip center, might not look the part, but it is storied in zep history. It is two relocations and one name change removed from its origins as Linfante's, a Main Street drugstore that was among the first to make the zep.

Lou's, a vintage-1941 lunch counter a couple doors down from a funeral parlor, can also claim a lineage that places it near the sandwich's origin in 1938 - the year after the Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, N.J., splashed zeppelin pictures across newspapers nationwide - though neither can properly claim to be the inventor.