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Ready to make room on your bookshelves? Have cookbooks that you haven’t opened in years?  Take them to the SoFAB Culinary Library and Archive and donate them so that all of the city’s culinary students can use them. Drop them at 1609 O.C. Haley Blvd between 11 and 5 on weekdays or email info@ southernfood.org for a special pick-up. Your donation is tax-deductible. The most controversial thing about the muffuletta is the spelling. Central Grocery asserts muffuletta. Many people spell it “muffaletta” or even “muffalotta” (Rouses spells it “muffaletta”). Any sandwich that inspires its own marching dance group deserves multiple spellings. I do not believe that a standard spelling can be established, especially in English. (Remember the word is from the Sicilian dialect that does not have a standard spelling.) All you can do is draw a line and choose a side. Any way you spell it, it’s still delicious. on Decatur Street claims to have invented the sandwich when customers ordered the ingredients but did not eat them as a sandwich. Perhaps they first introduced it or first innovated with olive salad. Regardless, soon it was available at other Italian delis in the French Quarter. And soon everyone in New Orleans was eating them. Who could blame them? Those are tasty sandwiches. And of course, the sandwich took the name of the loaf. In Italy there are lots of variations to the sandwich. Fresh basil leaves give the sandwich a lot of punch and brightness. Adding roasted red peppers is a classic addition. Some people have their Muffulettas dressed like a poor boy. People heat them and let the cheese and oils warm the bread. And mini versions are a great way to enjoy the taste without eating the whole sandwich.

Muffulettas, Muffalettas by LizWilliams, President &Director, Southern Food&BeverageMuseum + photos by Frank Aymami

I was in Sicily walking around the streets of Palermo. Everywhere I looked I saw the signs in small bakeries for muffulettas. Those familiar round loaves of bread covered with sesame seeds and sometimes fennel seeds were just regular loaves of bread there, but I loved seeing them. I loved it that so many familiar names you hear in Louisiana are the names of the towns in Sicily. Sandwiches on bread –— not muffuletta loaves — but made thick with various salumi, were also easy to come by. And the salumi was glorious. Besides the prosciutto di Parma or San Daniele which is a cured raw ham or crudo, there is soppressota, salami, mortadella, and more. Those sandwiches also were layered with cheeses. They were moistened with olive oil and pressed under a weight. They were prepared ahead of time and just waiting for the buyer to make a choice.

In the mid-1880s when Sicilians began to immigrate to New Orleans they began to influence the food of the city. They farmed, sold food in the stalls of the French Market, worked on the river, and opened restaurants and stores. They introduced a tomato sauce, whose Creole version is now red gravy. They opened snowball stands that made that treat ubiquitous in the city. They had all of New Orleans stuffing vegetables with bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. And like so many immigrants they continued to practice many culinary habits from home. Those Sicilians who labored in the French Market and along the Mississippi River could pick up a sandwich for lunch made on a muffuletta loaf that was a taste of home. Adding olive salad, a tasty way to use up broken olives and further stretched with carrots and cauliflower, gave a flavor punch to the sandwich. Central Grocery

Donald Rouse and Rusty Perrone at Rouses Markets in Saraland, AL. Perronne & Sons supplies us with un sacco di elementi italiani (a lot of Italian items.)

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY MARCH | APRIL 2014