Underappreciated: olive loaf, on a roll with mozzarella and mustard.
Previously: With a hyphen or without, "yo-yo" describes a children's toy and a pastry, savory or sweet, that resembles it. One particular pan dulce at Mexican bakeries is sometimes called a yo-yo; at South American shops the similar item is usually called an alfajor. Many New York pizzerias give the name yo-yo to palm-sized spirals of baked dough, perhaps fattened up with slices of sausage and pepperoni. There's also a breadless Venezuelan sandwich that fills the bill, though the etymology of this yo-yo may have to do with the plantain, which supplants the bread, and not the shape per se.
Clemente's yo-yo has no resemblance to the toy and only passing kinship to the greasy pizzeria yo-yo. The shell, fashioned from housemade dough, has the texture of a raised donut, and the fillings, a "variety of Italian meats" and cheese, have the pedigree you'd imagine from a shop long celebrated for its sandwiches. The history told to me across the counter, a decade ago, was that the horned shape evokes a hand gesture exchanged, in some still earlier age, on the sidewalks of nearby Bensonhurst, and that the name was simply a shoutout: "Yo! Yo!" It's a good story; we might never uncover a better one.
Clemente's Fine Foods
138 Ave. T (West 8th-West 9th Sts.), Gravesend, Brooklyn
718-996-0872
www.Clementes.com
