“Have you seen the bologna that has the olives in it? Who's that for? ‘I like my bologna like a martini. With an olive. I’ll have a bologna sandwich - dirty.'”
- Jim Gaffigan
Do people eat bologna like they used to? It doesn't seem like it. I never hear talk of bologna nowadays. Growing up in the 60s and 70s, I think bologna was one of the four food groups, at least in our humble midwest town. Everybody had bologna around as far as I knew. One of my friend's mom was even known to make bologna salad, so, like I said, midwest humble.
As a kid, there was always bologna in the house. My mother was a great cook. She made good ol' farm food every day. It wasn't like we existed on lunch meat, generic cornflakes and powdered milk. But still, there was generally a ring of bologna in the fridge for whenever. You get you some cheap, spongy white bread, a square of American cheese (That's the only kind I knew there was until adulthood), some Miracle Whip, peel the red ring off a round slice of bologna, and there you go. Does the color of bologna exist in nature otherwise? Maybe hot dogs, I guess. Same, same.
I was almost ruined for bologna when I was about 12. One evening my dad and I were sitting at the kitchen table with some bologna and other refrigerator odds and ends. On the farm, the big meal was at noon. Supper was lighter and less involved - something that my Mom called “pull-out”… leftovers essentially, or whatever was on hand.
Dad made some casual reference to what bologna was made of and I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Oh, it's just whatever's left over in the slaughterhouse, you know, snouts and tails and whatever.” “NO!" I said, wide-eyed. “It's true,” he said, “Read right there on the package.” I grabbed it up and sure enough, the very first ingredient listed was Hog Snouts…Hog Snouts! We raised hogs. I was quite aware of hogs and their snouts and tails. GROSS!
In my youth, no one was precious about food. You ate what was there and what was set in front of you. Too bad if you didn't like it. So, to swear off bologna was a real sacrifice for me. But, that's what I did. I couldn't overcome the grim visions in my head. Once I was out in the world there were some lean years. Bologna would have been economically handy, but I couldn't do it.
Somewhere along the way, though, I guess I got over it. I had a fried bologna sandwich at Cafe B-29 in Ozark not long ago. It was great.
What brought all this up? Oh, I ran across this poem by Louis Jenkins and it got me to thinkin'. Here you go:
Boloney
By Louis Jenkins
There's a young couple in the parking lot, kissing. Not just kissing, they look as thought they might eat each other up. Kissing, nibbling, biting, mouths wide open, play fighting like young dogs, wrapped around each other like snakes. I remember that, sort of, that hunger, that passionate intensity. And I get a kind of nostalgic craving for it, in a way I get a craving, occasionally, for the food of my childhood. Boloney on white bread, for instance: one slice of white bread with mustard or Miracle Whip or ketchup — not ketchup, one has to draw the line somewhere — and one slice of baloney. It had a nice symmetry to it, the circle of baloney and the rectangle of bread. Then you folded the bread and took a bite out of the very center of the folded side. When you unfolded the sandwich you had a hole, a circle in the center of the bread and baloney frame, a window, a porthole from which you could get a new view of the world.