As big as a hubcap and layered with ham, salami, provolone cheese and -- critically -- olive salad, a single muffuletta sandwich can feed four grown adults. The muffuletta, despite its Italian-sounding name and ingredients, is pure New Orleans. It can be found neither in Italy nor in the other American cities that, like New Orleans, received an influx of Italian immigrants in the late 19th century.
Most sources credit Central Grocery, the French Quarter Italian grocery that opened in 1906, for inventing the muffuletta, although a 1971 States-Item interview with Charlie Tusa, the son of one Central Grocery's founders, casts doubt on that claim. "Nobody has ever been able to figure out for sure how the muffuletta started," he said.
