Muffuletta Sandwich

Below is an article about the sandwich known as Muffuletta: 



MUFFULETTA SANDWICH

The name Muffuletta is known for two things - the bread and the sandwich. The bread, originally known as "Muffoletta", is used for the famous sandwich of the same name. As for the sandwich, it was created by an Italian immigrant - Sicilian actually - named Salvatore Lupo. The latter owned a story called Central Grocery Company on Decatur Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. The bread had been made and eaten by Sicilians for centuries. 

Sometime during the early years of the 20th century, Lupo made an agreement with a local baker, another Sicilian immigrant, to supply Muffoletta bread to his store. Lupo then re-sold the bread to his customers. With that agreement, the unknown Sicilian baker became a wholesaler, and the workers no longer bought their bread from him, but from Lupo's Central Grocery. There, workers not only bought the Muffoletta bread, but also their lunch ingredients - bread, meats, cheese and salad. In 1906, Lupo Salvatore decided to combine these ingredients into a sandwich. He decided to use the Muffoletta bread, because of its ability to hold the filling without leaking. To make each sandwich; Lupo filled a Muffoletta loaf with olive salad, meats and cheeses; wrapped the sandwich in paper; and sold it as a Muffoletta sandwich. However, Lupo misspelled the name as "Muffuletta". As a grocer and not a baker, Lupo was not familiar with the spellings of the many Sicilian breads.

As I had just pointed out, the traditional Muffuletta sandwich begins with the Muffoletta or Muffuletta loaf - a large, round, and flattened bread that is similar to the Focaccia bread, but is lighter, crispy on the outside and soft inside. The loaf is split horizontally and covered with layers of salami, ham, Mortadella, Swiss cheese, Provolone cheese, and olive salad. The olive salad consists of green and kalamata olives diced with the celery, cauliflower and carrot mixed in a jar of giardiniera, seasoned with oregano and garlic, covered in olive oil, and allowed to combine for at least 24 hours. In Greater New Orleans a seafood sandwich is made with muffuletta bread and fried seafood, often including oysters, shrimp, catfish and occasionally softshell crab. However, the Seafood Muffuletta sandwich omits the olive salad in favor of the traditional dressings of a seafood Po'Boy sandwich, such as melted butter and pickle slices, or mayonnaise and lettuce.

Since many of Lupo's customers regarded the Mufuletta sandwich as easier to carry, than the ingredients for it, it became an immediate success. The success of Lupo's Muffuletta sandwich led other local grocery stores, including the nearby Progress Grocery, to construct and sell their own versions of the Muffuletta sandwich. 

Below is a recipe for a traditional Muffuletta Sandwich from the LauraFuentes.com website:


Muffuletta Sandwich

Ingredients

1 10" round loaf Italian bread with Sesame (or a soft round Italian bread)
1 cup Olive Salad
1/4 lb Genoa Salami
1/4 lb Capicola or deli ham
1/4 lb Mortadella 
1/8 lb Sliced Mozzarella (3-4 thin slices)
1/8 lb Provolone (3-4 thin slices)


Preparation

1. Cut the bread in half length wise.
2. Brush both sides with the oil from your Olive Salad or really good extra 
virgin olive oil, go a little heavier on the bottom.
3. Begin layering your ham, mortadella and salami on the bottom half of the 
bread. Top with your cheeses.
4. Next, add the olive salad from the center out. Put the lid on and press it 
down without smashing the bread.
5. Optional: toast/warm up in you oven for a few minutes.
6. Quarter it. You’ve just created pure heaven!