Illegal Bologna Seized At Mexico Border

[Monte Smith]

No word on whether the ultimate destination was Washington, DC....

Load Of Illegal Bologna Seized At Texas-Mexico Border
(AP) November 24, 2003

EL PASO, Texas -- Border agents last week landed a meaty bust, seizing 756 pounds of bologna arranged into the shape of a car seat and covered with blankets in a man's pickup.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized 81 rolls of Mexican bologna Friday at the Paso Del Norte bridge as the pickup entered the United States.

"It puts the ultimate consumer at risk," said customs spokesman Roger Maier. "Who knows how long these products have gone without refrigeration or without proper handling?"

Children were sitting on top of the illegal load before it was discovered, Maier said. The rear seat had been removed from the extended-cab pickup and the bologna was put in its place.

He said the agency plans to pursue civil penalties against the Mexican man driving the truck. Maier said the agency won't release the man's name until the case goes to trial.

Maier said the bologna goes for about $1 a roll in Juarez. When it is sold to a customer in the United States, it can go for between $5 and $10 a roll , he said.

[jesus marion joseph]

Who knew there was that much money in bologna?

[Monte Smith]

Originally posted by jesus marion joseph
Who knew there was that much money in bologna?

YOU ARE NAIVE.

[jesus marion joseph]

Ha ha! Apparently so.

[Pete C]

Any Bologna that isn't mortadella should be illegal.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally posted by Pete C
Any Bologna that isn't mortadella should be illegal.

Here, here! Or at least Olive Loaf, for God's sake.

[jesus marion joseph]

Are those pistachio chunks in that mortadella, or is that some illegal Mexican stuff?

[Tom Storer]

You can just imagine the preliminary conversation of the border guards as this car rolled up.

"(sniff) You smell bologna?"

[Uli]

Originally posted by Pete C
Any Bologna that isn't mortadella should be illegal.

I would personally appreciate jus a lil more tolerance for The Cervelat and The Saussicon Lyonnais.

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Uli
I would personally appreciate jus a lil more tolerance for The Cervelat and The Saussicon Lyonnais.

I have lots of tolerance for those, but they ain't baloney. As far as I know, the junk we call bologna here is basically a variation on the true Bologna sausage, mortadella. American baloney is disingenuous, as it doesn't display the fat up front like mortadella.

[Uli]

Es ist mir wurst. and I never leave without it:

[Pete C]

Head cheese, baby.

[Chris D]

Oh, geez, I think I'm gonna puke....

[Brian Olewnick]

Head cheese ain't that bad. I accidentally ordered it once at a little German place in Yorkville (Ideal on E. 86th St.) thinking I was ordering spaetzle (it was called suelze and I got them mixed up). When the gelatinous slab arrived I was a little put off but dug in anyway.

Not bad.

[hornplayer]

Originally posted by Pete C
I have lots of tolerance for those, but they ain't baloney. As far as I know, the junk we call bologna here is basically a variation on the true Bologna sausage, mortadella. American baloney is disingenuous, as it doesn't display the fat up front like mortadella.

And it sure doesn't TASTE like Mortadella, either!

[Pete C]

When I lived in the East Village I used to buy dark head cheese (dark from blood) from the Polish & Ukrainian delis. It's similar to blood & tongue loaf, but it has more varieties of head meat.

Brian, you must have had:

Souse of Sulz -- (cooked meat specialty)
Similar to head cheese except for sweet-sour flavor added by vinegar pickling liquid; dill pickles, sweet red peppers and bay leaves sometimes added.

And my mortadella picture may have been German style:

Mortadella, German Style -- (cooked meat specialty)
High grade, finely chopped bologna with cubes of fat pork and pistachio nuts added; smoked at high temperature.


http://www.hot-dog.org/hd_sausage_glossary.htm

[clinthopson]

The secret of Mexican bologna is the soupcon of iguana along with the herbs and spices.

[Jimmy Cantiello]

Originally posted by Brian Olewnick
Head cheese ain't that bad. I accidentally ordered it once at a little German place in Yorkville (Ideal on E. 86th St.) thinking I was ordering spaetzle (it was called suelze and I got them mixed up). When the gelatinous slab arrived I was a little put off but dug in anyway.

A peanut butter and head cheese sandwich is just the thing..........

[Cem]

Speaking of some of the finest cured meats on earth:
SUCUK & PASTIRMA

[Sergio Zamora]

Originally posted by Pete C
Any Bologna that isn't mortadella should be illegal.

In Mexico, we call it mortadela even if it's closer to American style bologna. You can also get real mortadela, though. And plenty o' head cheese (which we call queso de puerco)! I used to eat head cheese tortas all the time back in the day

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Cem
[B]Speaking of some the finest cured meats on earth: PASTIRMA & SUCUK

But the order of the pictures doesn't match the text.

I know that the word Pastrami comes from Pastirma (I knew it as Bastirma), but I wonder if Sucuk is a Turkish word that spawned sausage, or if Turkish borrowed it.

So much food from Northeast Asia to the Middle East & India has influences and names that come from Turkey.

[Cem]

Good eye, Pete. Glad someone's paying attention. I changed it. We call sausages and wieners and frankfurters another name: Sosis. Btw, when I explain what "playing hide the wieny" means to Turks, without fail, they are ROTFL, which is quite remarkable, as pretty much anything North Americans find humourous, Turks don't find funny at all and refer to as "American humour" or "American joke".

I've always wondered about the history of foods I grew up with. It may be that Turks as nomads took these foods to those places. It makes sense with nomads and cured meats. Another possibility would be that during the heyday of the Ottoman Empire, as it sprawled from the Middle East to North Africa to the gates of Vienna, Turks stole all these food ideas from their neighbours and nations under their rule.

[Monte Smith]

I have a tiny reserve of mortadella anecdotes. In fact, I have one.

I worked in a gourmet deli one season. I'd graduated from college and toured South America, I came back to America with not a lot to do. I watched the World Cup and got a job slicing meat and cheese at Gourmet Place, owned and run by a retired Special Forces colonel, Ed Jones. Ed recognized at once that I was "lazy." Ed insisted that he was going to be the guy that turned me into a "perfectionist." One time Ed pulled a knife on me.


Digression. Gourmet Place had a glass case of premium salads in the front of the store. One of the salads was shrimp salad. The shrimp salad had to be spooned over every few hours or so, or else it got brown. Spooning the salad was my job. (Yes, I tossed Ed Jones' salad). Ed comes in one afternoon and sees brown salad. "God damn it, Smith, how many fucking times do I have to tell you to turn the goddamn salad? You fucking goddamn waste of fucking shitbag. Next time I have to tell you to spoon the goddamn shrimp fucking salad, it's going to be ME and YOU."

Here the patented Monte Smith cutesy humor could not resist. "Me and you, Ed?" I asked. "In the shrimp salad?"

I still recall the cold look in Colonel Jones' eyes. He had blue eyes. Blue like the color of an old bruise. He took a pen knife out of his pants pocket and opened it up and pressed the blade against my adam's apple and said, flatly, "Any goddamn time you want."

Later that day, I had to laugh. The North Vietnamese had put anti-aircraft rounds through both of Ed's legs, so it was to be expected that he would take zero pounds and no ounces of bullshit from a minimum wage college meat slicer like myself.


Ed went ballistic one day about mortadella, teaching me in a blink of an eye his extraordinary ethic. Which was that the customer always has the right to go fuck herself.

This little old lady comes in. She's an immigrant. She's Italian. She's very happy to find a gourmet deli that supplies some of her wants and needs from the old country, like fresh mortadella. She's a regular customer. I'm waiting on her and she says:

"Can I please half a pound of mortadella,please."

"Of course you can, you sweet old immigrant Italian broad," I think. "What a woman! I can only imagine the things you have seen, huh?"

I reach into the deli case and get the mortadella--or one of the mortadellas. We have two. One is a plump new, uncut loaf of mortadella. The other is a leftover old husk of dried bullshit wrapped in cellophane that contains one good slice of meat that you could probably dig out of the hoary desiccated sausage if you had an ice cream scoop, a jar of vaseline, and the prayers of the baby Jesus. But even then you might need the help of the Halliburton Corporation.

The poor woman says, "Oh, could I please get the half pound from the new mortadella?"

Ed Jones is watching this like a hawk. Is Ed evil? Is he a Republican? Ed is the guy who counseled me--which advice I took--that I had to vote against Ollie North (R) and for Chuck Robb (D) in the 1994 Virginia Senate race because North was a "goddamn fucking liar."

Ed Jones says to this old Italian lady, with a vigor that impacted her little mustache with a noticeable breeze, "Lady, you'll take what mortadella we are selling or you'll buy your goddamn mortadella somewhere fucking else."

Horror! Complaint! Hasty exit. Awkward silence.

I wasn't a businessman at that hour, but Ed Jones' way with a steady customer shocked me like raw apostasy. Like the most brilliant heresy, like Luther, his statement cleaved my cosmology into before and after. Verily, it was like he nailed a thesis of mortadella to my church door at Wittenburg.

[Tom Storer]

Great anecdotes!

I particularly liked You fucking goddamn waste of fucking shitbag.

And speaking of anecdotes, Monte...


HOW'S PUMPY?

[Pete C]

Cem, I found an interesting web page that goes into some of the roots & cross influences of Turkish, Persian & Arab cuisine.

http://www.geocities.com/josefeberl/persian.htm

[jesus marion joseph]

So, did the lady buy the old mortadella or the new mortadella?

[Pete C]

From the website I posted above:

"A special Saudi Arabian dish, not found anywhere else, is Stuffed camel.

For this, you take a young camel, season it and stuff a seasoned lamb into its cavity. The lamb’s cavity is then stuffed with a turkey, which has been stuffed with a chicken, which in turn has been stuffed with a quail or pigeon. This “DISH” you slowly roast in a suitable oven at low temperature for at least ten hours or more. Serve to a hungry crowd.



No Joke! I did not believe this recipe, until I actually was requested to cook ten of them, together with hundred stuffed lambs and about a thousand kilo of rice dishes, and much more, for a large outside catering, to be attended by the King.

Then I saw the Ovens you need for it with my own eyes. They are made in Germany, and have nearly double the size of one of our kitchens here at ICUM. They have rotating shelves inside which fit four stuffed camels at a time, or about thirty whole lambs. "

[Brian Olewnick]

If the whole thing is then smeared with peanut butter, I might be interested.

[clinthopson]

Great story Montebaby.

Pete, when I made the stuffed camel, which is obviously a turducken on steroids, the hardest part was boning that goddam camel.

The hump makes great leftovers.

[rebetiko blues]

Originally posted by Cem
Speaking of some of the finest cured meats on earth:
SUCUK & PASTIRMA
[IMG]h

ttp://www.atamanhotel.com/kitchen/pastirma1.jpg[/IMG]

pasturma is really great kardas
but you don't refer to the results(the smell on your body) that makes it a rather adventurous experience.
do you know siglino?