Bologna sandwich

The bologna sandwich is the simplest American lunch there is: two slices of white bread, one slice of bologna, mustard, a dollop of mayonnaise, and a few rings of onion. No cooking, no measuring, no ceremony — and a century of history inside it.

Ingredients

• 2 slices white bread
• 1 slice bologna
• Mustard, to taste
• A dollop of mayonnaise
• A few slices of onion

Method

1. Lay out both slices of bread.
2. Spread mustard on one slice and the dollop of mayonnaise on the other.
3. Lay the bologna on the mustard side, then top with onion slices.
4. Close the sandwich, cut in half if you like, and eat.

History

Bologna — the American lunchmeat — descends from mortadella, the large, pale, finely-ground pork sausage of Bologna, Italy, seasoned with myrtle berries and studded with fat cubes and sometimes pistachios. Italian immigrants brought mortadella to the United States; American processors simplified it into a uniformly smooth, mild, inexpensive sausage and gave it the city name — spelled "bologna," pronounced "baloney" by nearly everyone.^[1]

Through the twentieth century bologna became the cheapest lunchmeat on the deli counter — sold by the slice at the butcher, in the waxed-paper chub at the grocery, and in the red-ringed plastic packs that filled postwar lunchboxes. During the Depression and the war years that followed, a slice of bologna between two slices of white bread was a lunch that cost pennies and kept for the walk to school or the shift at the mill.

Folk and cultural notes

• The fried variant — in Appalachia and the South, the same sandwich is fried: the bologna hits a hot skillet until the edges curl and crisp — a slit cut in the middle of the slice (or a few notches round the edge) stops it cupping into a dome — sometimes crowned with melted cheese. Fried bologna is its own regional dish, not a version — ask around West Virginia.
• The jingle — Oscar Mayer's 1973 television ad, "My bologna has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R," turned the lunchmeat into one of the most sung product names in America.
• The word itself — "baloney" drifted into slang for nonsense partly because the sausage itself was a humble imitation of grander charcuterie — the food's reputation became a figure of speech.
• Bologna cake — a Midwestern and Southern joke dish: stacked rounds of bologna frosted with cream cheese and decorated like a layer cake, served at parties as edible misdirection.

See also

• Main Page — back to the kitchen
• Recipe Help — how to add your own recipe