Muffaletta Sandwich

The muffaletta sandwich is composed of a round loaf of crusty Italian bread containing layers of mortadella (Italian salami), ham, Genoa salami, mozzarella and provolone cheeses, and olive salad. It reflects the influence of Italian immigrants on the cooking of New Orleans, a city noted for its Cajun and Creole cuisine. Arriving in significant numbers around the turn of the twentieth century, many of the immigrants were from Sicily, and they found employment in the French Quarter’s food industry. One such person was Signor Lupo Salvadore, who established Central Grocery in 1906. It is said that Lupo, taking a cue from Italian workers who would scoop broken olives from barrels onto the bread they brought for lunch, created the muffaletta sandwich. It is named for a bread called muffaletta that was first made in New Orleans around 1895 by a baker of Albanian descent from Palermo, Sicily. The bread is still produced, in the early 2000s, by at least one old-fashioned neighborhood bakery in Piano degli Albanese, near Palermo, home of an Albanian colony since the fifteenth century. A signature sandwich of New Orleans, the muffaletta has become so popular that it appears on restaurant menus throughout the United States.