A Completely Gratuitious Post on Nola Food

Only in New Orleans can you have shrimp boiled with butter and Zatarain's for breakfast, a muffaletta for lunch, and a po' boy for dinner. And remember, in New Orleans, you can never refer to "shrimp" as "prawns" and they should always be served with heads and tails.

If you've never had a muffaletta, allow me to explain this prodigious sandwich that calls New Orleans its birthplace. A muffaletta is sandwich that is loaded with a piquant and acerbic chopped "olive salad" that is almost comparable to a caponata + tapenade mix. The salad contains substantial hunks, bits, and pieces of marinated or pickled vegetables, including capers, pepperocinis, pimentos, anchovies, and olives. This is no puny sandwich. The crusty, dense, and chewy bread that encloses a muffaletta is twice the size of a dinner plate from Denny's. And every muffaletta is interlayered with slice-upon-slice of soft provolone cheese and salami flecked with peppercorns. Forget about Skittles, the muffaletta is the true rainbow of flavors. Gulliver would definitely find these things in Brobdingnag.

The only New Orleans sandwich that rivals or trumps the muffaletta, is the po' boy. Although people in New Orleans use the term "po' boy" to refer to almost every type of submarine sandwich, a po' boy most commonly refers to a sandwich stuffed with battered and deep-fried nuggets of oysters, catfish, and/or shrimp. Additional po' boy components include iceberg lettuce that is shredded so finely that it melts in your mouth, a few slices of dill pickle, and one lonesome slice of red tomato. (Remember, use minimal veggies here folks, minimal veggies.) All of a po' boy's ingredients are enclosed within a loaf of chewy French bread slathered with extravagant amounts of mayonnaise and mustard.

I hope this quick course on Nola food has encouraged you to visit! Ya'll come now, y'hear!