Muffuletta

Invented in 1906 by Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian immigrant, at Central Grocery on Decatur Street in the French Quarter, for Sicilian farmers who came to sell produce at the nearby French Market. They'd order bread, meats, cheese, and olive salad separately; Lupo combined them onto one loaf so workers could eat one-handed. The sandwich is named for the muffuletta — the round Sicilian sesame loaf itself. Central Grocery still sells the original (from a temporary location after its Decatur Street store was damaged by Hurricane Ida).

Invented 1906 by Salvatore Lupo at Central Grocery on Decatur Street, New Orleans — Sicilian farmers at the French Market wanted bread, meats, cheese, and olive salad they could eat one-handed. The olive salad's oil migrating into the bread is the dish; eat it before that happens and you have a cold cuts sandwich. Sit it an hour minimum.

A round 10-inch sesame-crusted Sicilian loaf split horizontally, layered with mortadella, salami, capicola, provolone, mozzarella, and a chopped olive salad whose oil soaks down into the bread. Sold in halves or quarters because a whole feeds four. Eat it after it's sat an hour — the olive oil migration is the point. Fresh-built, the bread is dry and the layers slide.

The olive salad is load-bearing. Green olives, kalamata, giardiniera, garlic, oregano, olive oil — chopped, marinated overnight minimum. Without the oil saturating the bread, it's just a cold cuts sandwich. The Sicilian loaf is denser than French bread by design: it has to absorb without disintegrating. Substitute ciabatta and the bottom turns to mush in 20 minutes.