New Orleans is one of the great sandwich cities, rivaled perhaps only by Philadelphia. Though it lays claim to just two iconic sammies — the po'boy and the muffuletta — both are transcendent, and the po'boy comes in so many varieties that it's pretty much a category of its own. In honor of Mardi Gras, take a 'wich trip through New Orleans's sandwich history.
Meanwhile, I'm going to New Orleans again in April, so if anyone has any recommendations, please share. I haven't been to Parkway, so that might be on my list.
The muffuletta has changed very little since its invention in 1906, but the most major modification is also the most controversial: heating the sandwich in the oven, so that the bread is toasted and the cheese is melted.
Normally, I err on the side of heated sandwiches, but with the muffuletta, I come down on the cold side. And I'm not the only one with a strong opinion. According to Tom Fitzmorris, host of “The Food Show” on New Orleans’s WWL, “Every time this comes up on my radio show, it’s a guaranteed hour or two-hour conversation,” says Fitzmorris. So allow me to continue it.
That sandwich pictured at the top of my blog? Why, it's only one of the most delicious sandwiches ever: the muffuletta from Central Grocery in New Orleans. Enough people have asked me about it that I figure it's time for a little 'letta lesson.
Invented by a Sicilian grocer in New Orleans around 1906, the muffuletta (pronounced moofalottah or moofalettah, depending on who you ask) contains an antipasto platter's worth of genoa salami, Italian ham, mortadella, swiss and/or provolone cheese, and a hefty scoop of olive salad, all served on a sesame-seeded roll also called a muffuletta and about the size of a Frisbee. Though no one is quite sure who invented it, Central Grocery in the French Quarter stakes the claim, and most people accept that.
A half sandwich will handily feed two people; my family of four used to order a whole one to eat on the Moonwalk by the Mississippi River. It's one of my favorite sandwiches ever and definitely one of my most sentimental. The most magical thing about a muffuletta is that, unlike most sandwiches, it actually improves over time. Here's how.
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