The muffuletta is the least malleable of local culinary staples. Unlike the city's other iconic sandwich, the po-boy, a genre as much as a dish, the muffuletta offers few opportunities for artistic license. Seafood "muffulettas" are muffulettas in name only, and the vegetarian version I've eaten several times at Surrey's Cafe & Juice Bar is good but, well, vegetarian.
A traditional muffuletta is built from thin-sliced meats -- ham, Genoa salami, mortadella -- for which you will not find ready substitutes in the sea or garden. And once you enjoy these items in the company of provolone (often accompanied by Swiss) and the crucial layer of oily olive salad found between halves of circular, sesame seed-freckled muffuletta bread, the thought of fussing with the formula does not leap to mind.
Crucial layer of oily olive salad. ijs.
Now I want a muffuletta.
Also I want a Kerffuffuletta Bunny.