CULINARY COMPENDIUM OF COOKING CANT 16 – BOLOGNA

Why hello there, and welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophes! Sorry we cut out for a couple days there, I don’t know what happened, but I’m assured it was a technical mix-up on our host’s end, and not at all our fault. (That was the literal text I got “It was their fault, ultimately”. And that was like, a day and a half before it actually got fixed, so I can only assume things continued to go wrong)) As such I DON’T know how people are going to react to today’s post, because I can’t see how much people liked Monday’s.

 (Small side note: I actually was going to scrap this post, because I thought people HATED Monday’s post: when I checked our traffic numbers Wednesday morning on the website we use to build/run the site. I saw we had dropped to 0 views for Tuesday and Wednesday, and went “shit, I didn’t think it was THAT bad…” It wasn’t until a couple hours later that I said, “hold up, ZERO VIEWS? That hasn’t happened on the site in YEARS.” and we discovered that we were completely down. )

Anyway, today we’re going to go on a small tour of the various kinds of bologna you can find in America and around the World to give people an understanding of just how much variety goes into this tricky little sausage in the latest edition of our Culinary Compendium of Cooking Cant.

So let’s start by defining what, exactly, Bologna IS:

BOLOGNA

1.       AMERICAN ~ (n) – a forcemeat sausage of very fine grind, made of meat (typically pork), fat, and seasonings ground together into a homogenous mass, often seasoned with myrtle berries, lending it a distinct flavor. The mixture can be smoked, but is not required to be

2.       BEEF/TURKEY/CHICKEN ~ - (n) as above, but using different meat sources as the base protein. Made for a variety of reasons, including religion, flavoring, health concerns, etc.

3.       “VARIETY MEATS” – (adj) a label applied to Bologna that uses meat from different sources, including non-muscular meat. (ie, organ meat such as heart or liver). USDA rules require that your bologna be labeled with the meats used.

No, I meant the bologna PACKAGING would be labeled…you know what, it’s fine.

BBQ BOLOGNA

1.       (n) a tradition in Memphis and Oklahoma, whereby bologna  is smoked (often in-house), sometimes glazed , and thick slices of it (sometimes grilled for extra char and crispiness) are served with barbecue sauce,  often as a sandwich.

BOLOGNA CAKE

1.       (n) an abomination against God and Man.

2.       (n) An arrangement of slices of bologna layered in a savory-seasoned cream cheese mixture, often made with worchestershire sauce, garlic powder, and minced onion/onion powder or dry Ranch/Italian salad dressing powder, often served with crackers and some other kind of cheese.

3.       (n) Honestly, it doesn’t sound THAT bad, just really weird.

In words I’ve heard quite a few times: “It looks exactly like you’d expect, once you know to expect anything at all.”

BRAUNSCHWEIGER

1.       (n) technically a separate meat product, American Braunschweiger is similar in texture to Bologna, but is made with pork liver and bacon and is almost always smoked.  Compare to the similar Liverwurst, which is also a smooth pork liver sausage, but is NEVER smoked and does not contain bacon. (Also, a lot of versions have a sort of “fat ring” on the outside. Or maybe that’s like, gelatinized casing? I don’t know)

2.       Supposedly one of Nate’s favorite Sandwich meats, but I haven’t seen him eat it in like, 2 years.

LEBANON BOLOGNA

1.       As noted in Monday’s post, a variety of “Bologna” that is not as finely ground, and relies on garlic and smoking for its flavor profile. Is much drier that most Bologna, being, in essence, a form of cured beef salami.

2.       So named because it originates in Lebanon County in Pennsylvania, a large outpost of the Pennsylvania Dutch, who brought over Wurst-making practices from Germany.

MORTADELLA

1.       (n) an Italian sausage style that used large studs of pork fat and intact flavorings sprinkled in an otherwise finely ground pork sausage. Mortadella d’Bologna is believed to be the origin of “Bologna” in the US vernacular, though strangely most often used, as with LEBANON BOLOGNA to refer to products made by German immigrants.

OLIVE LOAF

1.       (n) Technically a form of Meat Loaf that consists of finely ground pork studded with green olivess (often themselves stuffed with pimentos), and flavored with garlic, basil, and peppers.

2.       Not technically bologna because it’s not sausage. Because a sausage is a ground mixture of meat, fat, seasonings, and maybe some binders, while meat loaf is ground meat, seasonings, binders, and maybe…some…fat.  Very different.

It looks NOTHING like the immediately higher picture of pink meat with green chunks in it!

PICKLED BOLOGNA

1.       A form of RING BOLOGNA that has been pickled. Sometimes these explanations are pretty simple.

2.       Only notable for the intricate socio-political MEANING it undertook in some regions, as a sign of a twice refined food (being processed, THEN pickled) meaning it was something of a luxury item in destitute regions such as Appalachia.

POLONY

1.       What they call Bologna in the UK, Ireland, and South Africa. British Isles Polony is notable for defaulting to a beef/pork mixture, and is typically served as cold slices, while South African Polony is much like American Bologna, hence its presence in our Gatsby sandwich.

RAG/WAX BOLOGNA

1.       (n) a variety of Bologna with a greater amount of fillers and fat than standard, that is often cased in paraffin wax or a treated Rag, hence the name. Popular in West Tennessee, and Newfoundland  (a large slice of fried bologna in Canada is often called a “Newfie Steak”, in reference to the island’s love of the meat.

I don’t know why, but for some reason “Love of meat” made me want to share this “big stick” chub of wax bologna.

And there you have it, a breakdown of various bolognas. Sorry we’re a little short today: with the technical difficulties, I wanted to ensure we could get a post up quickly once the site was back up. (And also I discovered a fun hot-key interaction where, instead of reversing a picture placement, you get to delete the last half of your fucking post if you click UNDO. with the wrong box selected!) I assure you, I’ll be back to my normal longwindedness come Monday. Speaking of:

MONDAY: I CLAIMED WE WERE HAVING CAKE, BUT I”VE CHANGED MY MIND. INSTEAD, EXPECT SOMETHING A LITTLE SPICY, A LITTLE SWEET, THICK AND HOT FOR YOU TO EAT. AND CONTAINING NO MEAT!

THURSDAY: I STRAIGHT UP HAVE NO IDEA. LIKE, I JUST DID A REVIEW, SO THAT FEELS WRONG. LET’S SEE IF MONDAY INSPIRES ME.