Bologna: A History

according to the united states centers for disease control approximately half of all americans will eat a sandwich in a given day and the most common kinds of sandwiches include cold cuts the website business wire notes that the global cold cut industry is worth some 72 billion dollars and the website mashable explains that in 2016 americans spent some 500 million dollars just on baloney products the history of bologna combines a distant past with modern inventions and economic trends and immigration and government programs all to come to the baloney and american cheese on white bread with mayonnaise staple that the usa today describes as a nutritionally dubious midday meal for millions of american students you might think that i'm full of baloney but i think that the history of the strange slimy pink cold cut deserves to be remembered you might think that cold cuts those cold slices of cooked and processed often mystery meats would be a rather new invention however the concept is quite ancient as people have been developing techniques for preserving foods since prehistory there is a unique challenge in determining exactly when various processes for meat preservation started as a 2019 study entitled meat outside the freezer drying smoking salting and sealing meat in fat at an epi-paleolithic mega site in eastern jordan published in the journal anthropological archaeology explains the main problem lies with the fact that storage generally involves perishable food placed in perishable containers for animal foods at least or utilizes structures which are often scattered over the landscape away from excavated sites where archaeologists stand a chance of finding them still using contextual clues at an archaeological site in jordan the authors conclude that meat was being preserved through drying in the late pleistocene around 20 000 years ago and were undoubtedly a common practice resulting from shared ecological knowledge during the epi-paleolithic and likely earlier thus a version of the delhi tray might have been included in the stone age diet drying might not have been the first method of preserving meat a 2019 article published in science advances online suggests that large leg bones of deer were kept in order to preserve the marrow inside for consumption in times of need the research from a cave in israel used during the pleistocene suggests that this form of meat preservation might date back some 200 000 years much of the food that we call cold cuts today is cured using chemicals or salts such as potassium or sodium nitrates again you might think that this is a relatively modern process but an article in the food science magazine earthworm express considering the preservation of mummies concludes that salt curing of beet was well known as much as 7 000 years ago where it was in all likelihood discovered in many other regions around the world where these salts naturally occur the authors suggest that the process might have come to europe from china along the silk road preserved meats many very similar to the ones still eaten today were well known in ancient civilizations a blog on the webpage of the atlanta restaurant compania explains that the concept of deli beats as we think of them today goes back to around 500 bc with the etruscan and roman populations in fact there are some references to cold-cut meats even in the book the odyssey and in the medicinal recipes of hippocrates various roman recipes for curing and preserving meat usually ham and usually done with salt still exist today in fact the italian word salume which refers to a number of different kinds of cured meats is derived from the latin root sal meaning salt one type of meat apparently known in ancient rome was pork ground with a mortar the chicago tribune noted in 1990 the museo civico in bologna has two carved roman staley or stone tablets in its collection found at a nearby roman burial site they depict scenes of pig husbandry including a worker pounding meat in a mortar pork ground by mortar usually salt cured and with pork fat added is called mortadella the tribune continues mortadella takes its name from the morteo or mortar or used for breaking down pork meat which is called mortea de la carne de melle shortened it becomes mortadella mortadella is particularly connected to northern italy in the region surrounding the ancient city of bologna where the tribune notes by the year 1000 the pig had such an importance in this region that forests were measured not in service area but in the number of pigs they could support a january 2016 edition of vice news describes the importance of the production of mortadelli in the city of bologna in the middle ages roughly 10 thousand people a quarter of the city's population were involved in its production at around 280 samiri the industry was so important that in 1661 the cardinal girolamo farnese published a notice the notice about the preparation of mortadella and salami issuing a legal definition of the process meet including standardizations for its production into january 2021 issue of usa today notes that a frame decree from sarah rowley a sort of governing body made up of artisan charcuterie makers dating all the way back to 1250. on the wall of bologna's simone laboratorio roughly translates to if you make fake mortadella without the approval of the salaroli your body will be stretched on the rack three times you will be fined 200 gold coins and all the food you make will be destroyed as the mortar and pestle implies mortadella is finally ground the website the food wonder explains that traditionally mortadella would have been spiced with nutmeg cloves peppercorns cinnamon white wine sugar or salt the chicago tribune provides a description of the oldest known mortadella recipe from a 1557 cookbook the pork should be proportion of fat to lean according to the taste of the maker pound everything well in the mortar then weigh it and for every 25 pounds of meat throw on 11 ounces of salt two or three times along with the same amount of crushed pepper mix everything together until it's very smooth and then add a glass of red wine and let it sit for two or three days bologna mortadella was famous enough that the tribune notes that it was shipped to france england and other european countries one dominican priest said that he had sampled its delights as far away as america so how did this famous italian delicacy wind up on white bread with mayonnaise in american lunchboxes like much of american cuisine bologna sandwiches came from immigration but not the way you might think usa today explains that although italy sent some 4 million immigrants to u.s shores between 1880 and 1924 these folks weren't actually the link connecting bologna italy with bologna sandwiches instead that credit goes to waves of german immigrants who settled in large swaths of the midwest southeastern canada and especially pennsylvania the website eater.com notes bologna's arrival in north america is unclear but it generally is associated with german immigration some of the strongest bologna traditions hail from regions where german immigrants settle like the midwest appalachia and pennsylvania bologna is popular in the south and parts of canada to according to the vancouver sun 95 of canadian bologna is consumed in atlantic canada half of that in newfoundland despite its italian origins it was these german immigrants whose own culinary history included sausage making who realized the potential market in america usa today concludes the german mortadella eaters of europe were confronted with the curious opportunity to become german mortadella manufacturers once they settled in their new north american homes nobody else was making the stuff here at the time so someone had to do it if anyone was going to get the chance to enjoy it in fact one german in particular helped to popularize the product the website history daily explains after moving to the us with his family at age 14 oscar ferdinand meyer took an apprenticeship with a butcher and worked for the next six years in chicago's meatpacking industry eventually he leased his own meat market with his brothers and using the traditional sausage-making techniques they brought with them from europe sold their bologna to chicago's growing german american population with tremendous success by the 1920s the oscar mayer sausage company had brought bologna mainstream however usa today notes that the new product deviated from traditional mortadella these new german butchers of pennsylvania both expanded and diluted the original heritage product producing was once a chiefly pork lard and pistachio-based product from the state's ample wild turkey populations along with chicken and beef and pork when it was accessible but there was more involved in making the meat mainstream for one the pace of business changed a november 1922 issue of the new york times entitled sandwiches flourishing interviewed the manager of a new chain of sandwich buffets once he was a manager of a large hotel where men came in leisurely ordered lavishly and ate copiously that day is gone he is convinced the new pace of the city's launching was facilitated by new technology new york times goes on the development has brought with it all the machinery of sandwich making now becoming as common a feature at restaurant windows as the hot cake steam plate new yorkers know so well there's a machine that slices the loaves and another that slices the meat the last of this at the press of a button cuts and slices ham tongue beef and so on without touch with human hands sandwich making is thus facilitated and sandwiches themselves have changed not only in status but also in stature and girth but even more than the fast pace of the roaring 20s the rising popularity of bologna was related to what came next the buzzy new fad of slapping some meat and cheese onto sliced bread rights usa today had arrived just in time for the great depression it continues american bologna cheap to produce in its infinitely adaptable forms transitioned from a pennsylvania immigrant community lunchtime meal for farmers and factory workers to what much of the country was eating for dinner several nights a week in the 1940s the growth of refrigeration meant refrigerated sections in grocery stores and a new demand for convenience foods and the advent of plastic packaging helped to make bologna a perfect fit for housewives seeking convenience to liberate themselves from household chores bologna sandwiches started to become more common in the lunchboxes children took to school then mashable notes 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 and because bologna is a low-cost food it ended up on a lot of lunch trays and in a lot of lunch bags of course there are mixed opinions about those sandwiches but the meat does have an appeal to the taste of children mashable of pines growing up you had a few choices of meats that your parents would pack in your lunchbox a tuna sandwich which was the worst a plain american cheese sandwich also the worst a peanut butter and jelly sandwich just plain boring or if you were blessed that day you dig in your brown paper sack or your evil knievel lunch box and you discover a bologna and american cheese sandwich and life was good others however might have thought differently as illustrated by another trend noted by usa today in the 1980s bologna was being served in prisons across the united states in such abundance that many prisoners had no choice but to eat it for all three meals a day about 35 years later still being served in some jails twice a day but now you're probably wondering why do we call it baloney and not bologna while the german immigrants were making mortadella in america they simply called it bologna after its italian origin how the pronunciation changed is a matter of some dispute linguist mark lieberman in his blog language log notes that bologna has essentially three definitions one being the type of sausage one being the italian city and one meaning nonsense although all generally spelled the same they can be pronounced bologna or bologna further he notes the dictionaries agree that these two orthographic words have three senses between them with sausage being shared you can call the sausage bologna or bologna and the other two not bologna isn't an italian city and bologna isn't nonsense how did this happen a 2021 article in the huff post appropriately written by lifestyle reporter caroline bologna suggests various theories most around the idea that americans simply pronounced it wrong possibly by misapplying the italian tendency to end words with ia like italia thus making it instead of bologna bologna or because they wanted to create a word that just sounds funny the connection between the sausage and the nonsense word is pretty straightforward given that we don't know quite what is in a sausage and then the term began to be used more generally by the 1920s for example sports writers referred to big clumsy boxers as baloneys due to the huff post explains whatever connection they were making to the sausage whether it was that they had sausage for brains or that they kind of looked like big sausages it served its purpose as a funny sounding word in america the sausage is often now spelled b-a-l-o-n-e-y and while either spelling b-a-l-o-n-e or b-o-l-o-g-n-a is considered proper for the sausage linguists agree that the spelling b-a-l-o-n-e-y should be used to mean nonsense bologna who admitted that her name resulted in teasing as a child concludes so depending on how you look at it the way we pronounce or spell bologna is a bunch of baloney i'm more inclined to believe the pronunciation is the problem though i am of course biased at least i can say that thanks to oscar meyer people know how to spell my last name even if they don't know how to say it today mortadella is still an important and popular food in bologna where the residents would likely be disgusted with the slimy pink packaged doppelganger that we eat here in the united states the most obvious difference between the two is that mortadella uses chunks of lard giving a marbled appearance and often includes things like pistachio or olives while bologna is gently ground into a consistent paste each year the town of yale michigan hosts a bologna festival which according to its website attracts some 20 000 baloney starved party-goers and where among other things they crown a bologna king and queen the festival in 2022 is to be held july 29th to 31st so there still might be time if you want to make plans to attend american adults seem to have mixed feelings about their childhood food for some it seems to be a horrible memory but others well they find it a nostalgic treat i like my baloney with mustard and that nostalgia according to imaginable has led to a new trend where many fine restaurants are now including fancy bologna sandwiches on the menu and many localities are developing their own kinds of artisan baloneys and so the food that once said the romans looks like it will continue to fill lunch boxes well into the future i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide check out our community on the historyguyguild.locals.com our webpage at thehistoryguy.com and our merchandise at teespring.com or book a special message from the history guy on cameo and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history all you have to do is subscribe [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 502,662

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, bologna, baloney, lunch

Id: gZaOK0Cj3ug

Length: 15min 56sec (956 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 08 2022