For many, bologna is a nostalgia food, a non-negotiable part of summer time, and also a major part
of school lunches.
But how much do you really know about this mystery meat?
Let's find out where it came from, what it's made of, and where it is now.
Bologna may be a low-cost lunch meat today, but it's roots go way back to something surprisingly
fancy.
You might not know it today, but bologna is the great-great grandson of the Italian mortadella.
Mortadella, much like bologna, is made from finely ground pork meat, which is first cured,
and then cooked in a low temperature oven before it's packaged.
The main difference between bologna and mortadella is that mortadella also contains added fat
or lard, which gives it that distinct marbled appearance.
Mortadella also sometimes has pistachios or green olives in it, which makes it sort of
like a fancy version of bologna's olive loaf.
Mortadella also contains a lot of spices, and at one point it was considered a food
for the rich and powerful, due to the cost of the spices used in the production of it.
And in some varieties of bologna, you can still taste this lunchtime favorite's spicy
roots.
Yes, the standard grocery store bologna you'll find pre-packaged in your grocer's refrigerated
cold-cut section doesn't contain a lot of spices, but if you visit a meat market and
buy sliced bologna, you will probably be able to discern spices like pepper, coriander,
and garlic.
When you purchase lunch meat like ham or roast beef at your deli, you basically see what
you are getting.
Ham looks like ham.
Turkey looks like turkey, and there's no doubts about what you're putting on your sandwich.
That's not quite so with bologna.
You can't quite tell exactly what it is, and that's given rise to bologna's reputation
as something of a mystery meat.
The FDA requires that all bologna be created in such a way that it's ground into tiny particles,
which makes it so that consumers can't discern any fat or spices.
Essentially, the result of this manufacturing process creates a "meat batter."
What goes into this meat batter?
Beef, pork, turkey, chicken… or all of the above.
One of the most common varietes, the Oscar Mayer brand, is made from mechanically separated
chicken and pork.
The USDA explains:
"mechanically separated meat is a paste-like and batter-like meat product produced by forcing
bones with attached edible meat under high pressure through a sieve or similar device
to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue."
Or to put it another way, don't think about how your bologna is made or what exactly it's
made from, and just sit there peacefully and eat your sandwich.
Many people might have viewed bologna as having too much of a mystery meat vibe.
Of being a little too weird.
It's a texture thing, right?
It probably doesn't help that as a lunchtime staple, bologna sandwiches have long been
given little consideration.
White bread, some mayo, and done.
Yum?
"I hate bologna, like more than anything else in the world.”
“UGH!
Spit it out, spit it out.
Please don't swallow it.”
No longer relegated to the category of desperation lunch, bologna sandwiches have recently become
the hippest thing since sliced bread.
Turkey and the Wolf, a restaurant in New Orleans, makes theirs with locally-made bologna, fried
on the griddle and piled high on buttered and browned slices of bread with cheese, mustard
made in-house, shredded lettuce, and, of course, mayo.
Then, a handful of chips are added for some seriously delicious crunch.
Fried bologna isn't just a simple staple any more, chefs are frying it and dressing their
sandwiches up with all sorts of things, like sweet relish and all different types of cheeses.
Others are topping their bologna sandwiches with things like caramelized onions and olives,
and still others are subscribing to the idea that you can't have too many fried things
on your sandwiches, and adding some fried pickles on there, too.
Some places don't settle for just frying their bologna, they're smoking it then serving that
up on a sandwich.
Today, it's just downright good for the soul, and whether you are enjoying a gourmet version
for your next meal out, or eating a cold bologna sandwich over your sink, it's time we all
started welcoming bologna back into our hearts and stomachs — in moderation, of course,
and after you share your fanciest bologna creations with the rest of the world.
During the early 1900s, most kids went home for lunch.
By the 1920s and 1930s, many schools had a lunch program where children were either given
free meals or meals that cost pennies.
During this time, guidelines about what constituted a nutritious lunch were quickly changing,
but schools did their best to keep up.
How did bologna fit in and become such a popular lunch time staple?
It had a lot to do with the fact that in 1946, President Truman signed the National School
Lunch Act, which established the National School Lunch Program.
The National School Lunch program provides low-cost or free lunches to children each
school day.
Because bologna is a low-cost food, it ended up on a lot of lunch trays and in a lot of
lunch bags.
Around this same time, grocery stores began offering "fresh foods" that were packaged
to have a longer shelf life than they had previously.
Bologna was a lunch meat that was relatively inexpensive, able to be kept fresh, and appealed
to the taste buds of children.
What more could schools and parents want?
Packaged bologna sometimes comes with a red string or seal around it.
What exactly is that stuff, and can you eat it?
There's actually a few possibilities, depending on the brand.
It might be a casing made from the gastrointestinal tracts of cattle, sheep and hogs, which makes
it slightly gross, but still edible.
If it's bright red though, it's most likely a synthetic casing, which may be made from
collagen, plastic, or other fibrous material.
Not all bologna has this red casing, and sometimes it's removed before it's sold in stores.
When confronted with this question on Facebook, Oscar Mayer replied, quote, " Yup, all the
bologna in the package purchased is good-to-eat," though questions about specific products went
unanswered.
While red synthetic casings may or may not be edible, it's probably safer to remove them
before consumption, unless the packaging specifically states that they're edible.
There's a good chance that they're not, and that's a chance you probably don't want to
take.
A little bit of plastic isn't going to do much to make your sandwich taste better, that's
for sure.
Even if you are a huge bologna fan, the idea of being locked up in the Dakota County Jail
sounds pretty awful and is made more awful by the fact that bologna is all you get.
The jail serves two turkey bologna sandwiches and a small side dish of fruit per inmate,
seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Even on Christmas.
In Alabama, a sheriff was locked up after feeding the inmates at his jail grits and
paper-thin bologna sandwiches.
Why such weird cruelty?
Wardens in Alabama are allowed to pocket money left over from providing inmates with meals,
and bologna is a very inexpensive choice to feed a group of people.
In Alaska, two Muslim inmates were fed bologna sandwiches during Ramadan and later sued for
having their civil rights violated.
Infamous Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio not only makes his inmates wear pink socks
and underwear, but he has also boasted about serving them rotten food, including green
bologna.
Most prisons allow access to vending machines and canteen services where incarcerated people
can supplement these meager mealtime offerings, but all that talk about bad bologna is enough
to make anyone rethink our whole legal system.
For those of you who want more bologna with your bologna, why not whip up a delicious,
creamy bologna cake?
This cake resembles a normal cake, until you slice into it and reveal layers of bologna
with a zesty cream cheese and ranch dressing frosting between the meat layers.
If you think it couldn't get any better than this you'd be so wrong because you also decorate
this deliciousness with cheese, but not just any cheese.
If you want it to be authentic, you'll have to use the stuff in a can.
That's right, you decorate the cake with aerosol cheese.
Serve it up with some yummy buttery crackers or cocktail bread and watch your friend's
faces light up.
Who needs a plain old cheese ball when you can have a cheese and bologna cake?
Sounds like a pretty delicious football game treat to eat with a nice cold can of PBR,
as you watch your favorite team fight their way to victory.
Americana at its finest!
If you thought the only way to eat bologna on a sandwich was to open the package, pull
the little red string off, and slap it into bread you'd be sadly mistaken, because you
can also enjoy the down-home deliciousness of bologna salad.
Nobody knows exactly where bologna salad came from.
It may have just been an offshoot of ham salad that came into existence when a clever housewife
only had bologna in her refrigerator in the 1950s so she decided to whip that into a bologna
salad.
But everyone knows someone who has a grandma or an aunt or a cousin who made this.
Bologna was cut up and mixed with mayonnaise and pickle relish and sometimes celery.
Then you either ate it on white bread or with crackers.
Nostalgia food for the win!
It's common knowledge we should all be trying to limit processed foods, including lunch
meats like hot dogs and bologna.
But how bad is it… really?
Well, for one thing, it's got a lot of salt and fat.
One slice of bologna contains 7.9 grams of fat and 302 milligrams of sodium, about 13
percent of your entire daily intake.
And who eats just one slice, especially when you're busy digging into one of those delicious
bologna cakes?
The real risk, though, lies in the nitrates in bologna.
Processed foods like bologna and bacon are frequently cured by adding sodium nitrate
to them, because nitrates can help stop food from spoiling and prevent botulism-causing
bacteria from growing.
The big downside to eating processed deli meats is that the International Agency For
Research on Cancer concluded that when you eat just a 50 gram portion of processed meat
every day, you're increasing your risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent.
Even though that risk is somewhat small, eating less processed meat can decrease your bowel
cancer risk.
This basically means that bologna should be a sometimes food if you simply can't resist
the urge to indulge.
The World Health Organization has classified processed meats as a Group 1 carcinogen, like
cigarettes and alcohol — which means they recommend it should be avoided entirely.
Depressing news, but better to be safe than sorry and swap out your bologna sandwich for
peanut butter on occasion.
All over the world, people keep making sandwiches in honor of President Donald Trump.
And what do these sandwiches contain?
Bologna, and a lot of it.
Restaurants from New York to Sweden are serving up the Donald Trump special which — to be
more specific — contains a stack of bologna, served on white bread, topped with Russian
dressing, with a small pickle on the side.
Some places, like the Windsor Sandwich Shop, have also added a wall of tortilla chips to
the plate.
Don't look for Trump to be ordering this delicacy anytime soon, because he has said his favorite
sandwich is a meatloaf sandwich.
The Donald is not the first president to be associated with bologna.
President Bush was said to order bologna sandwiches with a side of Doritos when he stayed at the
Waldorf Astoria in New York City.
First Lady Barbara Bush handed out bologna sandwiches at a soup kitchen in Washington,
and President Obama served bologna sandwiches at a D.C. nonprofit that serves low-income
families.
It just goes to show that whether you love it or hate it, bologna is here to stay.
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