The Muffeletta

I hate to blow my load on the first post, but in honor of Mardi Gras tomorrow, I wanted to share with you the wonder that is the muffeletta.

I borrowed this photo from Flickr user Hankins. He made his own Muffellta, aside from using a thinner bread, he stayed true to the original plans and documented his fine looking meat between bread here.

The muffelleta (or Mustafa, as a friend playfully put it) is basically a combination of Italian meats and cheese on Italian bread. What really makes the sandwich so special is the olive salad spread. Damn, if that's not an oily fine sandwich topping. This spread will make or break a muffeletta, and Central Grocery in New Orleans (the originator of the sandwich) makes my favorite.

Its named after the bread its served on, a focaccia-ish type of loaf. Spread on a little olive salad, add capicola, salami, mortadella, then top it off with emmentaler (a Swiss cheese, apparently (I know! I did research, I lied!)) and provolone cheese. Heat it up, get the cheese all melty and serve. You can buy a half sandwich, if you want a light snack. But if you're in New Orleans, pony up and eat the entire thing! Seriously, though, this thing feeds like, 2-4 people.

As you would expect, the place that created the thing does it the best, or at least is my favorite version. Couple that with being across the country, and you'll be damned if you can find a decent, Crescent City-ish muffeletta in the City of Angels. All is not lost, however as my quest for the SoCal muffeletta has lead me to two interesting place holders (something to hold me over until I can get my hands on a real one):

One: Vons (Pavillions if your nasty). Yes, the grocery store. They sell sandwiches next to the service deli and for five bucks, you can get the Big Easy. I cheap version of the muffeletta, on a French roll with genoa salami, ham, capicola (not sure, actually), swiss and provolone. Like I said earlier, the olive spread makes the sandwich and their olive spread is actually pretty tasty. Again, it's a cheap, bastard version, but isn't that what LA is about?

Two: Honeydew. There is a small sandwich shop in Burbank that sells their version. I must stress this is their version. It's more inspired by really. Kind of like when a movie is inspired by true events. Anyhow, it has turkey, ham and salami, with cheddar, provo and parm cheeses, and a decent twist on the olive spread. The real issue here is the addition of lettuce, tomatoes and onions in between sourdough bread. Yes, hardly a muffeletta, but it is delicious in it's own right. While one part of me wants to boycott it for taking a name of a sandwich it clearly is not, I can't help but be drawn into it's mountain of melted cheese and toasted bread.

So, go out and get fat this Fat Tuesday on this greasy pile of Big Easy goodness. I suspect you can get a version of this at Stevie's Creole Cafe in Encino (in fact, I think I've had one there and remember it being pretty good) or perhaps Michael's in Burbank. If you're not in the valley, you can go to The Bourbon St Shimp Co. on Pico. They don't have muffeletta's, but you can get a po'boy (that's a whole other post).

Happy Mardi Gras! Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!