March Muffeletta Madness! For NCAA Basketball fans, March is Tournament Time, where the month begins with the various conference championships, and ends with the NCAA and NIT post-season tournaments. Here at Virtually New Orleans, we're celebrating the post-season trials and tribulations of our local teams (UNO and Tulane) by engaging in what we call March Muffeletta Madness. We're going to eat a bunch of muffelettas this month, report on them, then revise the Top Ten Muffeletta List when the month is finished. What's a Muffeletta? Every city has a sandwich or two that is the daily staple of working folks in the area. Some places have subs, some have grinders, others have hoagies. Philly has its cheesesteaks. Here in New Orleans, the po-boy is the sandwich most folks immediately associate with the city, but that's not the only one. The muffeletta is as much a part of New Orleans as the po-boy. We don't have a true "Little Italy" neighborhood like you find in other cities, so the Italian places tend to be a bit more scattered around town. Perhaps this is why the muff isn't as popular as it ought to be. Still, anybody who knows good eating in New Orleans will seek out the best examples of this wonderful creation. The muff has similar origins to the po-boy--the need for a cheap, hearty lunch for workers. Around the turn of the century, folks of a more mixed New Orleans heritage (Creole, Irish, German, whatever) began eating what we now call the po-boy. The Italian families who owned the butcher and vegetable stalls in the French Market created their own version, but with ingredients more familiar to them. Instead of the long French-style loaves of bread, the Italians chose their round, sesame-seeded ones. The meats they used were ones they were comfortable with: salami, mortadella, and ham. The cheeses were Provolone and Mozzarella. Instead of the lettuce and tomato dressings of the po-boy, the Italians heaped generous portions of olive salad (green and black olives, celery, cauliflower, and herbs, all smothered in olive oil) onto the bread. The round loaf is then cut in quarters and is ready to serve. Hot or Cold? This can be a very controversial issue. Should the muff be served heated, or at room temperature? Many New Orleanians like their po-boys warmed before they're dressed and served, and this desire carries through to the muffeletta. The problem here is that the meats on a muff tend to be on the fatty side, and heating them up makes the sandwich way too oily (remember, you've already got lots of olive oil on the loaf). Still, serving the muff cold conjures up images of Subway or some other franchise abomination run by people who don't know what good bread is. The compromise that works best is to head the bread, then assemble the sandwich with the meat and cheese at room temperature (or in a deli cooler, possibly). The warm bread melts the cheeses and takes the chill off the meats without actually cooking them. Eating a Muffeletta The main place to buy a muff these days is still a neighborhood Italian grocery store. The most well-known of these stores is Central Grocery, on Decatur Street in the Quarter, but there are many others. Then there are Italian delis, and sit-down places like Napoleon House or Come Back Inn as well. The grocery stores are primarily take-out places, which makes the muff more of an outdoors or picnic sandwich than the po-boy. When you get a po-boy at a place in the CBD, you usually sit there and eat it. When you get a muff from Arabi Food Store or Progress Grocery, you've got to bring it someplace to eat it. That's why many of us associate the muffeletta with a nice spring day. Next Installment in March Muffeletta Madness: The Recipe. For more on New Orleans, our city, restaurants, and food, check out Virtually New Orleans at http://www.yatcom.com/neworl Cheers, Ed.
New Orleans, LA