New Life For An Old Legend

When I heard that The Central Grocery had closed after Hurricane Ida, it made me extra sad because I had never been there. That may be hard to believe but as I have stated on The Food Show many times, I was raised in the burbs and almost never went into the city. My producer Patty was raised in the city and these were regular haunts for her. Just a different life.

But I do have a taste for history, and it surprises me now to think about it. Marrying Tom made my life much more urban. We went into the French Quarter a lot, but still the Central Grocery remained a place off my radar. Its location in the Quarter is not the best, so it’s not a place I would find myself. It would have to be a destination. I was wistful to learn of its damage, because it meant that I would now never experience the historical space.

I was first determined to have a muffuletta, so when someone called the Food Show to report that they were being sold at Zuppardo’s, I went to get one. I was disappointed. When something is fabled, expectations are high, amd disappointment is inevitable. There are better versions of the classic sandwich around town. 

In the two plus years since Ida blew through town, the owners of The Central Grocery have been busy updating the centures-old building into a 21st century emporium. While fans of The Central Grocery made do with the muffuletta at Zuppardo’s, bits of news about the renovation dripped out. The pace seemed glacial. Unfortunately for any business owner in the French Quarter, renovations mean updating the infrastructure of these old buildings. Meeting modern codes can be frightfully expensive, and it is often the reason a proprietor simply gives it up and leaves the mess to someone else. Thankfully that did  not happen here, and after much work and expense, The Central Grocery now moves into another era.

I don’t have a means of comparison, but the new place is fantastic. It really is a grocery, in the sense of its time. Long before supermarkets offered us convenience in lieu of character, people walked down the street and picked up their essentials at the market. There weren’t twenty varieties of cookies that needed shelf space. Little markets like Central Grocery are still all over Europe, and in New York City mostly, but they are a relic of a bygone era most everywhere else. A pity.

This new Central Grocery is quite glamorous yet true to its roots. The ceilings make the small linear space seem cavernous in height. Shelves stretch to the ceiling and are lined with Italian goods like varieties of olive oils you won’t see anywhere else. It’s quite an assortment.

As I perused these cases I wondered who uses these things any more. There were tins of real sardines, not the kind Americans eat. There was Salt Cod, or baccala, sliced conch, canned clams, and snails. Walking through these aisles is a cultural experience. These are old ingredients that probably flew off the shelves when the Old Country wasn’t such a distant memory, or a place only heard about in family lore.

And there are modern products from the area like hot sauces and Steen’s Cane Syrup and Slap ‘Ya Mama seasoning and large versions of Paul Prudhomme’s spice line. Even Zapp's Potato Chips.

There is balsamic vinegar, both regular and better, and capers, artichoke hearts, and pepperoncini in jars. And pastas in every iteration: size, shape, brand, but all Italian. There are canned tomatoes of Italian brands. Some brands that have made it into widespread American distribution like Vigo and Alessi are here, but most of the names on packages are unfamiliar, which means I should go for those.

There are some prepared foods in cases, like artichoke balls, which are also available in a small batch over the counter.

The only other thing ready to eat were the muffulettas, which came in half and whole sizes. They were ready made, and wrapped to go. No heating. You could sit at a barstool along the handsome exposed brick wall and unwrap your sandwich, or you could take it out. That’s it.

There are a handful of stools along the wall that were all occupied when I arrived. Across from those is the counter where you can purchase anything, including premium meats and cheeses from Italy, which are displayed in front in a case.

We took out the half muffuletta and ate it at home, toasting just the bread. Tom and I have had discussions about the proper way to eat a muffuletta throughout our long marriage. Coming from a less sophisticated food culture, in my family we always heated it. Tom explained that the melted cheese and hot oils created a slimy mess. I finally arrived in his camp, deciding that toasting the bread and leaving everything else room temp was the ideal way to consume this wonderful culinary invention. 

To be honest, the ingredients inside seemed skimpy, but I think that is because today's muffulleta's are excessively stuffed. My tastes are now moving away from these dislocate-your-jaw versions into what the Central grocery offers: a simple sandwich with ample meats and cheese for each bite.

There is mortadella in the lineup, something a lot of people are skipping these days, and it diminishes the flavor. We thought the bread, which is loaded with sesame seeds, was wonderful, so that made up for any other sins. It was a great sandwich, and worth all the hoopla. I wondered if the hype contributed to its allure, but I don’t think so.

I want to go back to The Central Grocery and give it the time it deserves, losing myself in the shelves, packing up a basket of new discoveries of “real” Italian food ingredients. I want to sit at the counter with a muffuletta, and maybe an instantaneous “board” of salumi and cheeses that aren’t hip. But mostly, I want to immerse myself in this culture and truly appreciate these ancestors and their enormous and wonderful influence they have had on so much of what we eat here today.