...Looked kind of like this
Posted on 08/05/2012 12:56:58 PM PDT by djone
Bologna came in a stick, 5" diameter by 30" long, when someone asked for a half pound of bologna the grocer put it up on the saw, asked "thick or thin?" and sliced, put them on the scale and wrapped it up in white butcher paper. The bologna ends however went home cause people felt slighted if you sold them anything less than a full slice........
...Looked kind of like this
I sometimes think we need to go back to this simple way of life. People wwere damned glad to GET THE BOLOGNA back then and... I wonder how many even eat it today. It was good, delicious fried or natueral on a sandwich with fresh gardenlettuce, tomato, onion slices with mayo. OR...it was equally delicious with mustard, cheese, onion slices on ANY kind of bread.
Never liked bologna unless it was fried...or grilled. Had to be crisp and crunchy.
Years ago, some friends and I spent a weekend at a cottage along the Allegheny River up in the mountains not far from Tionesta, PA. On the way, we stopped in at a general store. It had the best meats, including different kinds of bacon — honey cured, maple cured, you name it. The store also sold Amish baked goods. We’re talking huge pies loaded with filling, tall loaves of bread... Jars of preserves, apple butter, even homemade peanut butter. This was a foodie paradise. Everything was homemade and all natural.
Alas, the cottage was sold, and some of the friends moved away. I miss the cottage and that cool store.
A loaf o’ bread an’ a roll o’ red.
Back in those days, everything tasted better because there weren’t all the additives we have today.
Not at the counter that I worked. The ends went in the grinder with the odds and ends of other processed meats to make the Bologna Salad.
Back in the late 60’s I was in a store like Octave Fontenot’s in rural Louisiana. A little old man in a white shirt and striped pants assisted by his early teen aged grand daughter. It was like a page from yesterday and seeing the photo reminded me.
A lot of WWII veterans can never stand the sight of bologna, as the lowest grade of it was used to feed the troops at the giant training camps.
Some soldiers were in the habit of after eating breakfast, to just stand around the main entrance of the mess hall, knowing that the bologna would make them vomit on schedule, and they wanted to send a message to the staff.
Eventually, the Army decided to replace the bologna with an even cheaper meat: boxcars full of aging salmon on ice. At the time it was thought of as a “junk” fish, and this was really low grade stuff. But that was too much, and the troops near rioted in protest.
Ironically, many southern soldiers abhorred most any food other than grits, so had to be forced to eat other food, if for no other reason than to prevent Pellagra.
“A lot of WWII veterans can never stand the sight of bologna, as the lowest grade of it was used to feed the troops at the giant training camps.”
***
Dad served in WWII, but he loved bologna. Like I said though, had to be fried or grilled.
Well yefragetuwrabrumuy it didn’t end after the war cause in the late 60’s a sailor on any transport that didn’t serve lunch was given a pasteboard box with one baloney sandwich and a apple. How they managed every time to produce the dryest sandwich and the mushiest apple I dont know. Ahhhhh those were good times
Oh lawdy, now you done flung a cravin’ unta me!
the last real butcher shop round here closed in the 90's when he was in his 80's... and just like cold cuts, you got your steak/ham/etc sliced as thick or thin as you wanted while you watch
My Dad called bologna “Tennessee Tenderloin”.
I can take you back to the mid-forties, in a little corner grocery store in
San Anselmo, California. Mr. Olson ( or Olie as we called him) would save the Bologna ends for us kids to catch Crawdads in Sir Francis Drake Creek .
Tie a string on the bologna bottom and dangle it into the shallow water
once the crawdad got hold of the bologna he wouldn’t let go.
We caught Crayfish by the bucket full.
Where would we be without Memories.
I’m good with fried bologna but you haven’t lived until you’ve had it smoked right along with the ribs and brisket. That is an experience to savor.
BTW, it is smoked as a large chunk/roll, not by the slice.
I thought that dry sandwich/mushiest apple in the box lunch was strictly an Air Force specialty. It took an especially interesting twist when leaving the NATO Missile Firing Installation in Crete, Greece to return to West Germany. The NATO contractor for food service was Olympic Airways, the Greek national airline. I guess overcooked goat in a dry pita is the cultural equivalent to bologna in dry white bread.
Green Lake (little sag pond* in Montclair Park, Oakland, CA): kids would use hot dogs as a very effective crawfish bait.
*Right next to the Hayward Fault!
Their bologna recipe was lost when the children closed the store after the owner's death. It so happens my hubby has closely copied the recipe. He just finished stuffing the casing for it to be smoked tomorrow. Yum!
Sold insurance around Hopkinsville Kentucky. There was this country store about 30 miles outside of nowhere. walk in tell the old man you wanted a “bloney”/cheese sandwich, pay him a quarter go on back slice your own cheese and “bloney” put some yellow mustard on bread make the sandwich. Stop in the way to the porch get a RC cola.
Out on the porch the old boys were talking bout farm stuff. They would always ask, “what you eaten today, boy” I would answer “bloney n cheese” they would say oh yeah-Old Shep sammich.
One old guy who heard I had served in the army in Germany, this was 1974 timeframe, asked me, “are they still fighting over there, boy? I told him no, they had stopped about 1945.
That store had homemade porksausage, home cured hams (no sodilum nitrite), great place, never forget it.
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