The Mets began their longest home stand of the season yesterday – they’ll be home through June 12 – and so the annual cry has once again gone out among fans who want more than hot dogs and Cracker Jack: Where can you get decent food around Shea Stadium?

Yankee partisans don’t face this problem, because Yankee Stadium is situated in the midst of a real Bronx neighborhood, complete with a wide range of food purveyors. But Shea, which is on the fringes of Flushing, is surrounded primarily by junkyards and scrap metal shops.

Some fans deal with this by venturing a bit deeper into Flushing, where Queens’s great Chinatown awaits. And that’s fine if you want a sit-down meal. But if you’re looking to grab something portable before the game, so you can bring it into the ballpark, there’s a much better option: Corona.

Corona, located just west of Shea, is an old-school Italian neighborhood, like pre-yuppie Carroll Gardens, or pre-Hispanic East Harlem. If you’re taking the 7 train to the game, get off at 103rd Street (two stops before the stadium) and walk about 10 blocks south; if you’re driving, take the Long Island Expressway to 108th Street (Exit 22A) and go about 10 blocks north. You’ll know you’re in the right place when you see the small, triangular William T. Moore Park at 108th Street and 52nd Avenue, where locals sit, chat, read Italian language newspapers, and play bocce.

An embarrassment of culinary riches lies within a five-minute walking radius of this park. A good place to start is the Corona Heights Pork Store (107-04 Corona Ave., 718-592-7350), where owners Mary Lou and Frank Capezza have been serving up some of the city’s best hot hero sandwiches ($7) for 40 years. The eggplant parmigiana is great, and the chicken parm is even better. The only catch: Mrs. Capezza cooks every sandwich to order, so you have to call ahead or be willing to wait 20 to 30 minutes.

It’s worth the wait, especially because the shop has the kind of homey ambiance that makes you want to linger anyway. You can watch fresh mozzarella being made in the rear of the store, or kibitz with Mrs. Capezza about her food, which is clearly her favorite subject. “Here, let me give you a sample of our merchandise,” she said to me during a recent visit. I watched in happy amazement as she cut a slice of Italian bread, ladled on a helping of her homemade tomato sauce, and topped it with a slice of fresh mozzarella, creating a mini-pizza, which she then handed to me. It was beyond delicious – I felt like I’d been rewarded, or maybe adopted. That same spirit of homespun goodness was evident in the chicken hero when I ate it later on.

A few doors east is a similar shop, the Corona Park Deli (107-22 Corona Ave., 718-699-5080).The hot chicken hero is very good here too, but even better are the shop’s smallish, golden-brown prosciutto balls. Inside the bready outer coating is a filling of ricotta cheese studded with small bits of cured ham and herbs. At 50 cents a pop, they’re irresistible and make a perfect ballpark snack – if you can actually make it to the ballpark without having eaten them all along the way.

A few blocks away is one of the neighborhood’s most storied food shops. Its official name is Leo’s Latticini (46-02 104th St., 718-898-6069), but everyone refers to it as Mama’s, in deference to the store’s octogenarian matriarch, Nancy DeBenedittis, who holds court at a back table while her three daughters, Marie, Irene, and Carmela, work the front counter and chat with customers.

Mama’s has become very Mets-centric in recent years. The shop, which had been a longtime favorite of food-savvy stadium employees and players, now provides catering for the home and visiting clubhouses at Shea and even has a small sandwich stand inside the stadium (field level, third-base side). The sisters often wear Mets jerseys, and Mets memorabilia adorn the walls.

But none of this has gone to the heads of the DeBenedittis family. The shop still feels like a tiny neighborhood secret, full of warmth and charm, and the sandwiches ($6 – several dollars cheaper than at the stadium outlet) are world-class. The default option is the Mama’s Special, which features salami, peppered ham, fresh mozzarella, peppers, and marinated mushrooms (and if you ask – as I do – sun-dried tomatoes), all on a hearty semolina roll.

Mama’s aficionados speak in reverent tones about Thursdays, which is the only day Marie’s roast pork heroes are available. The juicy pork, which is garnished with mozzarella and gravy, tastes like a picnic and Sunday dinner rolled into one.

The DeBenedittises have also opened an Italian bakery next door (46-10 104th St., 718-565-9104). The fare here is more pedestrian, with one notable exception: The almond biscotti ($8 a pound) are exemplary, and make a great stadium nosh.

There’s one other essential neighborhood stop: the Lemon Ice King of Corona (52-02 108th St., 718-699-5133), which has been causing traffic bottlenecks on 108th Street since 1944. If your idea of Italian ices is the increasingly ubiquitous Uncle Louie G – one of whose outlets, scandalously, is located less than two miles away! – the Lemon Ice King will be a revelation. There, the 25-plus varieties are made with real hunks of fruit and nuts, resulting in eye-poppingly vivid flavors ($1 for a small cup). My favorite is raspberry, but cherry, peanut, coconut, and the titular lemon are also wonderful.

Of course, there’s no way to bring ices to the ballpark, but a visit to the Lemon Ice King still makes for an ideal pre- or postgame ritual. And like all these other wonderful Corona venues, its fare tastes just as good when the Mets are out of town. I hear they’ll even serve Yankee fans.