Excerpt from a recent trip report on New Orleans, Louisiana:

--
18 restaurant visits this time. 19 if you include Napoleon House muffuletta
"to go" for the plane ride back. Which is a fearsome thing in an airplane
seat. Juicy olive salad, miscellaneous pickled peppers with wills of their
own, like cats or parrots. But worth the effort.
--

Let me illustrate that last comparison. Among other birds over the years,
20-plus years ago I looked after a pair of eccentric Amazon parrots for
friends when they traveled. These birds resembled oversized pickled peppers
in shape and behavior. (Posted about them online at the time.) The female,
Phinney, was very fat -- the only bird that left me with a stiff arm after
sitting on my hand for a while -- and spoiled; while the male, Frankie, was
deranged. Frankie was short for Frankenstein (he had been inexpensive).
They were not a couple, in fact Frankie would try to eat Phinney, in an
unplayful way, given the chance. Phinney was let loose indoors but this
caused hapless visitors to the house to complain "That thing went for my
jugular!" when Phinney was only being friendly. (People who do not know
parrots sometimes over-react.)

Anyway, Phinney's sport seemed to be to dive into dark and dusty places. An
embarrassing old couch against the wall, badly in need of vacuuming behind
and underneath, was her playground. She would plunge behind it and revel in
the dust balls until I reached down and fetched her out, like a used feather
duster but animate, sputtering indignantly against dustus interruptus. She
would then sneeze for hours from all the dust, while commenting incoherently
and calculating how to return.

The pickled peppers from the Napoleon House sandwich on the plane had much
in common with this.

In other regards it's a model New Orleans muffuletta: Round Italian loaf (or
large roll) about 25cm (10 inches) diameter, split and filled with sliced
cold slami and ham, a little sliced cheese, warm spiced olive salad, and the
aforementioned psittacine Pickled Peppers. Normally quartered and sold in
quarters, one full sandwich feeds four moderate or two hearty appetites.
The American Heritage Dictionary (fullsize 3rd ed. anyway; many of these
supplemental notes are gone in the 4th) characterizes it, unlike its local
cousin the Po'boy, as "one of the few large American sandwiches not made
with a long crusty roll." The Central Grocery is another respected source,
credited with the sandwich's invention there in 1910.

-- Max

You really should try the Central Grocery muffuletta, as it's the best
you can get. We've bought them for friends to eat on the plane home as
well, and they said they think they could've sold them for $25 a piece
for all the envious looks they got!
--Crybaby

"Crybaby" in oups.com:
> ... the Central Grocery muffuletta ... the best you can get.

I can believe it: As noted earlier, they invented it.

My stumbling into Napoleon House's muffuletta some years ago, by the way,
reflected a sequence of events wherein stopping at Napoleon House en-route
Johnny's Po'Boys led to some regulars at NH swearing vehemently that NH's
Po'Boy sandwiches were as good as, if not better than, those at Johnny's,
and proceeding to order one for me, and a muffuletta besides. This left the
original plan impracticable (on top of two other large sandwiches) and left
a sandwich ritual at NH that still endures.

Napoleon house bartender Greg Cowman (the one who wrote the book _Secrets of
a New Orleans Chef,_ ISBN 1578061792, about his uncle) recently explained
why no seafood Po'Boy sandwiches are offered there. No deep fryer. (Of
course!)

> We've bought them for friends to eat on the plane
> home as well, and they said they think they could've
> sold them for $25 a piece for all the envious looks they got!

Excellent! Now I know how to finance the flights.

Thanks -- M


(PS: By coincidence, last night I was researching a question about "Mints"
in a remarkable1895 book and it showed a commercial fondant recipe along
with the boast "This recipe is worth $25 to any candy maker." That was a
different $25, of course -- the US still on gold standard, and
pre-devaluation, so $25 was 2.5 troy ounces of gold or circa USD $1000
today -- but still, a good coincidence.)

In a hasty moment, I wrote

| "This recipe is worth $25 to any candy maker." That
| was a different $25, of course -- the US still on gold
| standard, and pre-devaluation, so $25 was 2.5 troy
| ounces of gold [in 1895] or circa USD $1000 today

Of course $25 in 1895 was 1.25 Troy ounces ($20 to the ounce) or about USD
$500-600 today. (The devaluation in 1933 dropped the USD from one-twentieth
to one-thirty-fifth of a Troy ounce of gold.) $25 was 2.5 "Eagles," not 2.5
ounces. -- M