The muffuletta or muffaletta is both a type of round

Sicilian Sicilian refers to the autonomous Italian island of Sicily. Sicilian can also refer to: * Sicilian language, a Romance language spoken on the island of Sicily, its satellite islands, and southern Calabria * Sicilians, people from or with origins ...

sesame bread and a popular sandwich that originated among Italian immigrants in New Orleans, Louisiana, using the same bread.

History

The muffuletta bread has origins in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. The muffuletta sandwich is said to have been created in 1906 at Central Grocery Co. on Decatur Street,

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...

, U.S., by its

delicatessen Traditionally, a delicatessen or deli is a retail establishment that sells a selection of fine, exotic, or foreign prepared foods. Delicatessen originated in Germany (original: ) during the 18th century and spread to the United States in the m ...

owner Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian immigrant. Sicilian immigrant Biaggio Montalbano (

Wikidata Wikidata is a collaboratively edited multilingual knowledge graph hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a common source of open data that Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, and anyone else, can use under the CC0 public domain licen ...

), who was a delicatessen owner in New Orleans, is credited with invention of the Roma Sandwich, which may have been a forerunner of the Muffuletta. Another Italian-style New Orleans delicatessen, Progress Grocery Co., originally opened in 1924 by the Perrone family, claims the origin of the muffuletta is uncertain. The traditional-style muffuletta sandwich consists of a muffuletta loaf split horizontally and covered with layers of marinated muffuletta-style

olive salad Olive salad is a salad or giardiniera made from green olives, black olives, olive oil, celery, cauliflower, carrots, sweet peppers, onions, capers, parsley, pepperoncini, oregano, garlic, vinegar, herbs and spices. It is used to make the muffal ...

salami Salami ( ) is a cured sausage consisting of fermented and air-dried meat, typically pork. Historically, salami was popular among Southern, Eastern, and Central European peasants because it can be stored at room temperature for up to 45 da ...

ham Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term "ham ...

, Swiss cheese,

provolone Provolone (, ) is an Italian cheese. It is an aged '' pasta filata'' (stretched-curd) cheese originating in Campania near Vesuvius, where it is still produced in pear, sausage, or cone shapes long. Provolone-type cheeses are also produced in ot ...

, and

mortadella Mortadella () is a large Italian sausage or luncheon meat ('' salume'' ) made of finely hashed or ground heat-cured pork, which incorporates at least 15% small cubes of pork fat (principally the hard fat from the neck of the pig). It is tradit ...

. Quarter, half, and full-sized muffulettas are sold. The signature

consists of olives diced with the

celery Celery (''Apium graveolens'') is a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae that has been cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity. Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves. Depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, ...

cauliflower Cauliflower is one of several vegetables in the species '' Brassica oleracea'' in the genus ''Brassica'', which is in the Brassicaceae (or mustard) family. It is an annual plant that reproduces by seed. Typically, only the head is eaten – t ...

and carrot found in a jar of

giardiniera Giardiniera (, ) is an Italian relish of pickled vegetables in vinegar or oil. Varieties and uses Italian giardiniera is also called sottaceti ("under vinegar"), a common term for pickled foods. It is typically eaten as an antipasto or with s ...

, seasoned with

oregano Oregano (, ; ''Origanum vulgare'') is a species of flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae. It was native to the Mediterranean region, but widely naturalised elsewhere in the temperate Northern Hemisphere. Oregano is a woody perennial pla ...

and

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plant in the genus ''Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chive, Welsh onion and Chinese onion. It is native to South Asia, Central Asia and northe ...

, covered in olive oil, and allowed to combine for at least 24 hours. A muffuletta is usually served cold, but many vendors will toast it.

Etymology, pronunciation, and orthography

The name is believed to be a

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A ( abbreviated ) is a word-form ...

form of ''muffe'' ("

mold A mold () or mould () is one of the structures certain fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of spores containing fungal secondary metabolites. The spores are the dispersal units of the fungi. Not ...

", "

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is ...

"), perhaps due to the round sandwich bread being reminiscent of a mushroom cap; or from ''muffola'', "muff, mitten,". The forms ''muffoletta'' and its

iteration Iteration is the repetition of a process in order to generate a (possibly unbounded) sequence of outcomes. Each repetition of the process is a single iteration, and the outcome of each iteration is then the starting point of the next iteration. ...

s are modern Italianisms of the original

. Like many of the foreign-influenced terms found in New Orleans, pronunciation has evolved from a phonetic forebear. Depending on the specific

Sicilian dialect Sicilian refers to the autonomous Italian island of Sicily. Sicilian can also refer to: * Sicilian language, a Romance language spoken on the island of Sicily, its satellite islands, and southern Calabria * Sicilians, people from or with origins ...

, the item may be spelled: *''muffiletta'' *''mufiletta'' *''muffuletta'' *''muffulettu'' *''muffuletu'' *''muffulitteḍḍu'' *''muffulittuni'' *''mufuletta'' There are similarities between the muffuletta and the

pan bagnat The pan bagnat (pronounced ɑ̃ baˈɲa (pan bagna, and alternatively in French as pain bagnat) is a sandwich that is a specialty of Nice, France. The sandwich is composed of pain de campagne, a whole wheat bread, enclosing the classic salade n ...

sandwich which comes from

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

, France.

References

External links

*
Central Grocery Co.
— Home of the American-style muffuletta sandwich. * {{American bread Louisiana cuisine American sandwiches Italian-American culture in Louisiana Cuisine of New Orleans Sicilian-American cuisine Italian breads American breads Olive dishes

History

Etymology, pronunciation, and orthography

See also

References

External links