27 July 2011

Lost City: New Orleans Edition: Central Grocery


The wait for a Muffuletta sandwich at New Orleans' legendary, 105-year-old, French Quarter institution Central Grocery can be long, as the line above attests. But it need not be an ordeal.

It's name notwithstanding, the shop is far more famous for its monster sandwiches—which are made on an entire loaf of round, seeded, Italian bread the size of a long-playing record—than for its groceries. But there are still a great many groceries on its shelves, many of them of Italian origin, many local and quite a few of them obscure. This makes for interested browsing as the line for Muffulettas snakes through the aisles.









Surprisingly, given its size, the Muffuletta goes down pretty easy. I've never ordered a whole, but I had no problem polishing off a half.

3 comments:

maximum bob said...

One of the world's great sammiches.
Ordered one, it took about 16 hours
for me and my girlfriend to finish it. We ate it in stages.

Jim said...

The muffuletta sandwich is named for the bread it is made on--a round Sicilian olive bread.

Tinderbox said...

Got a muffuletta here only two weeks ago! Had a ten-minute wait, but luckily the line didn't snake out into the heat. Also grabbed a bottle of Swiss absinthe at the liquor store a few doors down.