Italian American Heritage Month Catering

Chicken parmesan has no ancestor in Italy under that name. Neither do meatballs the size of plums on spaghetti, or garlic bread, or the mozzarella stick. Cooks from Sicily and Campania built them here, into a cuisine of its own.

So the October menu is not an import:

• Chicken parmesan and baked ziti, the red sauce trays everyone knows
• The New York slice, a format this country invented
• Chicago Italian beef, dipped, with hot giardiniera

Most offices have eaten this food their whole lives without calling it heritage food. Naming it is most of the observance, and a tray lunch on this menu is ordinary money: $12 to $20 per person. What stayed in Italy, and the tray counts, sit in the Italian catering guide. The slice has its own math in our slice shop guide.

The sandwich changed its name in every city it landed in: a hero in New York, a hoagie in Philadelphia, a grinder in New England, a sub nearly everywhere else. Inside all of them, the same salami, capicola, provolone, oil and vinegar, hot peppers.

Order the muffuletta when delivery lands early. A Sicilian grocer in New Orleans built it in 1906: a round sesame loaf packed with olive salad and cured meats. The oil works into the bread as it sits, so the sandwich is traditionally made ahead.

Add an eggplant parmesan sub, the one vegetarian sandwich here that nobody built as an afterthought. A few counters our teams use are in this sandwich shop roundup.

The bakery is a second order, placed apart from the catering partner, and it is the one people mention afterward. A pastry counter runs on rainbow cookies, pignoli, and biscotti. A cookie tray sits out all afternoon with no chafer and nobody tending it.

Cannoli is the exception. A shell softens within a few hours of being filled, so buy from a bakery that fills to order and give them the serving hour.

The rainbow cookie is worth pointing at: almond paste layers in the colors of the Italian flag, and an American bakery invention.

A neighborhood deli, a slice shop, a bakery with a case out front. None of them are catering operations. They have a counter to run at noon and they take large orders by phone, from whoever picks up.

Plan around that. Two weeks is enough notice. Ask for a Tuesday or a Wednesday, treat the trays and the bakery box as two separate calls, and give each one the drop time out loud.

Office Oktoberfest catering is the same four weeks and a completely different table. CaterAi returns the delis, pizzerias, and bakeries near you that will cater in October. The fall calendar past October sits on holiday and heritage catering by month.