Muffuletta

The Muffuletta was invented in 1906 by Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian immigrant who owned Central Grocery in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The story goes that Sicilian farmers from the nearby French Market would come into Lupo's store for a quick lunch, ordering bread, salami, cheese, and pickled vegetables separately and trying to balance them on their laps as they ate. Lupo had the idea to combine everything into a single sandwich on the round, sesame-seeded Sicilian loaf called muffuletta. He spread the bread with a chopped olive salad, a tangy mix of green and Kalamata olives, giardiniera, garlic, and herbs, then layered it with mortadella, salami, ham, provolone, and mozzarella. The sandwich was an immediate hit with the local Italian community, and Central Grocery still sells thousands of them every week from the same counter where Lupo first assembled them.

The Muffuletta is one of the great regional sandwiches of the United States and a defining food of New Orleans's Italian-American community. It's traditionally made in advance and pressed under weight so the olive salad's brine soaks into the bread, making it actually better cold and a few hours after assembly. That makes it ideal picnic food, road food, and Saturday lunch food. Central Grocery, Cochon Butcher, and a handful of other French Quarter institutions sell whole and half versions to a steady stream of locals and tourists. Cut into quarters, a single full muffuletta easily feeds four people, which is why it's also a fixture at New Orleans tailgates, second lines, and Mardi Gras gatherings.