THE HISTORY

Pronounced “muff-uh-LOT-uh” by many New Orleanians, “moo-foo-LET-ta”, “muff-a-letta”, and abbreviated as, “muff”. An example: “I’ll take me a half a muff.”

The muffaletta sandwich is one of the great sandwiches of the world and can hardly be found outside of New Orleans. 

The cultural and culinary heritage of  New Orleans is most known for French, Spanish, African and Creole, except for those that live in New Orleans. The sandwich that is most known is the “po-boy”, which is a sandwich with fried oysters and shrimp.  But the muffaletta is as New Orleans as any po-boy, and there’s nothing Creole or Cajun about it.

It’s pure Italian, and pure Sicilian to be exact. The population and cuisine owes much to the Italians.  They’ve been coming since the 1880’s.  Their contribution has been immeasurable and you’ll frequently see “Creole-Italian” as one of the local cuisines.

Legend has it that the muffaletta sandwich was created by Signor Lupo Salvatore, in 1906, when he opened the Central Grocery Italian Market on Decatur Street in the French Quarter. He named it for a favorite customer or the baker of the round Italian bread. 

There’s heroes in New York, hoagies in New Jersey, grinders in Connecticut, Italians in Maine, subs in Massachusetts, and zeps in Philadelphia and muffalettas in New Orleans.

There are 4 main components to a muffeletta: bread, meat, cheese and the key component is the “olive salad”.

The authentic bread is a round 10” loaf and sesame-seeded.  Although, today it can be made with 8-12” rounds or long loaves. Meats are sometimes substituted because of expense, cheeses remain the same although provolone can be substituted with Fontina or Havarti, but the one thing that never changes is an olive salad.  The original olive salad recipe, they say, contains many pickled vegetables, (cauliflower, capers, pepperoncini – small salad peppers, cocktail onions,), raw celery and carrots, but today there are many variations. In some recipes they add anchovies, lemon juice or marinated artichokes.

The olive salad, being the most important component, is also eaten on really good bread with the cheese, omitting the meats, or just eat the olive salad as a dressing on top of a green salad or vegetable salad. 

There’s also a vegetarian muffaletta, whereby they saute’ onions, garlic and oregano in olive oil, add steamed broccoli and cauliflower until done and add olive salad.

Here are a few suggestions for using the olive salad:

Pasta, pasta salad, tuna salad, seafood salad, eggplant, pizza or focaccia topping, add to jambalaya, rice or risotto, omelets, potato salad, deviled eggs, etc.

MUFFALETTA SANDWICH - THE SANDWICH

OLIVE SALAD
1 cup chopped green olives stuffed with pimientos (about 25 olives)
1 cup pitted and chopped black-ripe olives (about 25 olives)
1/2 cup roasted sweet red pepper, chopped (1/2 of a 12 oz. jar)
4 large garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
3/4 to 1 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon oregano leaves, crushed
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon Cajun seasoning – optional

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  Cover and refrigerate at least 24 hours to marinate.  Will keep up to 1 week in refrigerator.

SANDWICH
1/3 lb. mortadella*, thinly sliced
1/3 lb. prosciutto**, thinly sliced
1/3 lb. salami***, thinly sliced
1/3 lb. provolone cheese, sliced
1/3 lb. mozzarella cheese, sliced
10” round loaf crusty Italian bread, cut in half horizontally

ASSEMBLY
Remove some of the soft inside of the bread.  You can drain the olive mixture and spread bread halves with oil mixture, then begin layering with cheeses, meats and lastly olive mixture, or, without draining, add half of olive mixture, meat, cheese, meat, cheese, meat, and remaining half of olive mixture.  Cover with other half of bread. Cut and enjoy.

1. Can wrap in plastic wrap refrigerate and weight it down for 30 minutes before cutting.

2. Can heat it in a preheated 350° oven. Place sandwich on baking sheet covered with aluminum foil and heat     10 minutes or until cheeses are melted.

Serves 4 to 6

*Mortadella – a premier sausage meat from Bologna, Italy, made from ground beef, pork, pork fat and seasonings. The American version is bolgna with pork fat cubes and added garlic.  German version is excellent substitute. 

**Prosciutto – Italian word for ham which is seasoned, salt-cured and air-dried. Although not original, you can substitute Black Forest ham, baked ham or boiled ham.

***Salami – The sausage family, preserved by curing.  Any salami is good, Genoa salami is preferred.

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