Baloney

Baloney
© Denzil Green

Baloney is a now much-maligned North American sausage used primarily as an inexpensive cold cut for sandwiches. It is not really known in Europe.

Food snobs insist on comparing it sneeringly to Mortadella, and dismissing it as a pale imitation. There's no particular logic in doing this, though, without following through and comparing bacon to prosciutto, breakfast sausage to salami, etc. Baloney was perhaps originally inspired by Mortadella, though there's no actual proof of that. Even if it were, it is now actually a product in itself. If you choose to look askance at Baloney, do so for its own sake: there's no need to compare it based on historical hypotheses with Italian-made Mortadella. Italian-made Mortadella is far more usefully compared with North American made Mortadella.

Baloney is a lightly-spiced sandwich or luncheon meat that is already cooked and ready to eat. It has a smooth-texture, very much like the meat in North American hot-dog wieners. It can be made from pork, beef or nowadays, chicken or turkey. Though the popular belief is that you actually don't what to know what parts of the meat are in it, what's used are tougher parts of meat that are high in collagen. The meat is ground finely and packed into a skin (usually an intestine) like a big sausage. It is not aged.

Cooking Tips for Baloney

Baloney in roll<br>- © Denzil Green</div>]Baloney is usually served to you in round thinnish slices, whether bought this way or already cut for you.

Baloney is often also served fried as well, though this sends foodies right over the edge. Baloney to be fried should be cut thickly. Sometimes it is cut up to 1/2 inch (1 cm) thick, especially if it's to be served in a hamburger bun instead of a hamburger patty.

When frying it, people sometimes cut slashes in the edges of the Baloney to stop the edges from curling up. Other times, though, that's exactly what you want the edges to do, so that the curled-up edges transform the slice into "Baloney boats" or "Baloney cups" into which you can spoon baked beans, mashed potatoes, grated Cheddar, etc. You can also crack an egg into a curled-up slice still in the frying pan, cover the pan, and let the heat and steam cook the egg.

For a breakfast dish, you can line muffin tins with a Baloney slice, crack a raw egg into it, sprinkle with grated cheddar and bake until the egg is cooked.

History Notes for Baloney

Some sources say Baloney was invented by Italian immigrants to America in the delis they ran, perhaps as a version of Mortadella.

This is just conjecture so far though: there hasn't been a single documented instance brought forward yet (2006) that it was sold in Italian delis, or that, though many Italians even in this "modern, store-bought food age" remain expert home sausage makers, that this particular batch of immigrants had on the voyage over forgotten what Mortadella looked and tasted like.

Literature & Lore

"My 'Baloney' has a first name
it's O-S-C-A-R
My 'Baloney' has a second name
it's M-A-Y-E-R
I love to eat it every day
and if you ask me why I'll say---
'Cause Oscar Mayer has a way with B-O-L-O-G-N-A."

-- Oscar Mayer Advertisement Jingle, mid 1900s.

Elvis Presley loved barbequed bologna.

Language Notes

Baloney is presumed (by popular myth amongst food writers) to have come about as a short form of "Bologna mortadella", which was shortened to just "Bologna", and then which, as Americans tried to pronounce it, became "Baloney." This, however, is just pure conjecture. There is no evidence yet presented for stringing these three separate words together like this. In fact, you could say that this "urban myth" might be pure "Baloney."

The word "Baloney" is also used now as a euphemism for saying something is "hogwash", "bullshit" or "rubbish". When this meaning is meant, the word is certainly almost always spelt "Baloney" and not "Bologna". Sometimes people even merge the two spellings to invent a third word, "boloney."

Despite the madness in North America for transforming other nouns such as Christmas into Xmas and doughnut into donut, the packers of Baloney perversely insist on resisting popular usage and still spell it as "Bologna." The EU wants North Americans to stop using this spelling of the word for it because of the credence it lends to the popular myth of it being a version of "Bologna Mortadella."

Recipe Suggestions

Baloney Canapés Recipe

Recipe Search

Other entries for: Baloney

Lebanon Baloney, Pickled Baloney, Rag Baloney, Ring Baloney, Sweet Baloney

Other entries for: Sausages