Muffed
By Andrea Thompson
In this week's Tables for Two, Leo Carey reviews Dovetail, which serves a deconstructed muffuletta, with lamb's tongue replacing the slices of bread. That's a bold choice, given that the sandwich's name (however you spell it) comes from the distinctive thick round loaf first made in New Orleans sometime around 1895, according to the "Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink." The book also notes that the sandwich is Italy's contribution to the melting pot cuisine of New Orleans:
Arriving in significant numbers around the turn of the twentieth century, many of the immigrants were from Sicily, and they found employment in the French Quarter's food industry. One such person was Signor Lupo Salvadore, who established Central Grocery in 1906. It is said that Lupo, taking a cue from Italian workers who would scoop broken olives from barrels onto the bread they brought for lunch, created the muffaletta sandwich.
As with most regional specialties, there are several competing origin stories. But the muffuletta is somewhat rarer in New York, though NOLA-philes have sussed out versions, with varying degrees of authenticity, at Tempo Presto, in Park Slope, and Delta Grill, in Hell's Kitchen, among others. (Partisans claim that, like bagels in New York, the ineffable character of the muffuletta loaf is due to New Orleans's distinctive water.) Dovetail might seem the most unlikely spot to serve it, though, and it's hard to imagine the buttoned-up clientele ordering the sandwich by its common nickname: "Waiter, give me a muff!"—Andrea Thompson