PA is Full of Bologna... Lebanon Bologna (2010) | Hacker News Reader

PA is Full of Bologna... Lebanon Bologna (2010)

pabook2.libraries.psu.edu

42 pointsjohntfella50 comments

Removing the initial caps in the title makes the reference to Pennsylvania look like a reference to fathers, and it's all the more incomprehensible with the ellipsis removed. Can it be fixed to appear as in the article?

EDIT: Thanks! For reference, the title originally appeared as "Pa is Full of Bologna Lebanon Bologna", but has now been fixed to "PA is Full of Bologna… Lebanon Bologna".

my apologies. when I copied the headline and submitted it seemed to auto fix into the original appearance. i'm not totally aware of all the functions here for editing as i'm more of a casual user.

Probably not your fault—there's lots of automated clean-up done on submission, which often requires human post-intervention to ensure correctness.

When I was a kid, we were pretty poor. So a lot of our food was purchased in bulk, and whatever that thing was would be the only thing we had to eat for a week, maybe even two. It didn't happen often, but there are specific things that I just can't even get near anymore without getting physically ill from just the smell.

Lebanon Bologna is one.

(something called "Hot Dog Stew" is another)

I have lived in PA all my life and remember touring Lebanon Bologna and Wilbur Chocolate (in nearby Lititz) in one day. I loved seeing all the processes that go into making bologna. I don’t eat much of it these days but I love the unique sweet flavor it has. I may have to get some now!

Oh man, I did the Wilbur Chocolate tour a couple times as a kid, that place was great. Years later, I ordered some Wilbur Buds online and they sent me like 5x the amount I ordered, seemingly intentionally. Good people! Apparently the Lititz factory closed 5 years ago but they still kept the storefront and museum open.

I haven't ever done a Lebanon Bologna tour, but a couple decades ago I did attend a large electronic music event ("rave" but that term was unpopular in the scene) in Lebanon PA. Naturally the vast majority of the attendees were coming in from Philly and other spots 2+ hours away. The small local police caught wind of it a couple weeks ahead of time, and called in a huge state task force, even though the event was legal and licensed. The state cops' attempt to place undercover agents was pretty comical -- a bunch of older balding guys dressed like goths (completely wrong scene!) jumping up and down and asking everyone if they "had any X pills for sale". Definitely an experience.

I grew up in PA and my siblings and I used to have Lebanon bologna in our school lunches every day. I'm not sure what there is to say about it, it's alright, sort of like a sweeter thicker cut salami. Ama I guess.

Agreed, it'll do, but I'm more of a chip chop fan myself.

From PA, can confirm. Also, it's pronounced Leb-nin.

Leb-nin, Excellent! Exactly right : )

The best part of PA food IMO — particularly SE PA — is the snack/chip aisle in grocery stores. Whereas the aisle is almost entirely Lays brands in other regions, PA has a flourishing small-snack ecosystem and only a few have escaped to other regions or been eaten up by FritoLayCo (like Herrs, Snyders, and Utz).

Best parts include potato chips cooked in lard (many brands including Goods and Gibbles and Martins and more) and really good pretzels (Hammonds).

Also TastyKake, which have since been bought by Bimbo and are now sold across the country.

I moved from PA to Colorado and my mom sent me a box of tasty kakes, all melted and pretty much destroyed and then I told her I can go to my local store and buy some. Her mind was blown, same thing with Amarosa rolls.

I grew up in Michigan, but my dad's family was from PA. Every family vacation out there we'd bring TastyKakes home with us. Butterscotch krumpets haven't been the same since they tweaked the recipe to stop the frosting from sticking to the wrapper, though.

Agreed, and the KandiKakes have had less peanut butter filling every since the acquisition by Bimbo.

Unique Pretzels are my favorite. We grew up on these - https://www.uniquepretzels.com/

Similar local PA vein: scrapple. They're both vehicles for less desired parts of various unspecified animals. Scrapple has some strong, distinctive spices, and it's usually sliced and fried as a breakfast protein.

Is it similar to scrapple in taste? I get the sense that the answer is no, but would like to confirm before looking for this. I don't much care for scrapple, but would be willing to give the bologna a try if the taste were more like a standard lunch meat.

scrapple is saltier. lebanon bologna is more like a sweet smokey ham. I don't think the two really relate flavor wise.

Scrapple is very different from Lebanon bologna, which is a lot more similar to standard lunch meat.

Lebanon bologna is closer to a summer sausage or salami, except it's all beef. It has that tangy, fermented flavor.

Scrapple is made from off-cuts and offal and cornmeal, and it isn't fermented. Both the taste and texture are very different from Lebanon bologna. I think most people would find the texture to be more off-putting than the flavor; it's more like a porky hash than like a lunch meat.

If you like scrapple try some livermush from North Carolina. It is very similar to scrapple. Besides being served fried for breakfast it is often eaten on a sandwich with mustard and/or grape jelly.

I grew up in Lancaster (just south of Lebanon county) and still visit family there often. There are all sorts of country stores and meat shops in the small towns. Each small town also has its own local chocolate company with Hershey being the most famous of course. In my humble opinion the best chocolate in the world is Wilbur buds: https://www.wilburbuds.com/

Anyway, check it out and don't forget to purchase sweet Lebanon bologna meat sticks for your trip home.

"Before reaching the bologna itself, the smoke from the generator first filters through water, which acts as a buffer to produce a cleaner smoke."

Are they using hookahs to smoke their bologna?

Effectively, yes. Wood smoke, not tobacco.

The only thing better than Lebanon Bologna is Sweet Lebanon Bologna. A simple Lebanon bologna and cheese sandwich (on a Martin's potato roll) is a typical lunch when I'm visiting my parents. I've gotten about a dozen friends to try Lebanon bologna, and they've all been pleasantly surprised. It's never what they expect, probably because it looks like salami.

I have been eating and loving Lebanon bologna since I was 4 or 5 so about 48 years now. Twice this week I had a Lebanon bologna sandwich for lunch. Sweet Lebanon bologna however is an abomination. I know HN guidance is too assume the best intentions of others but with an opinion preferring sweet Lebanon bologna it is very hard.

I studied in Bologna, Italy, and I don't understand why you call that Bologna.

Wikipedia says it's a derivative of Mortadella. It's different but you might see some family resemblance.

I'm going to express what I know will be an unpopular opinion.

PA snacks are terrible. Pretzels? The hell even are those things. Bologna wraps with cream cheese? I see so much pride around what I consider to be C- student level snacking culture.

What about cookies? You can’t even have a proper wedding without a full cookie table.

Yeah, no, sorry, but pretzels are the best type of bread ever invented anywhere in any era. Even better than sliced.

Out of interest, are we talking German style pretzels? Or is there an American variety?

I'm pretty sure people eat pretzels all over the western world. What makes that a Pennsylvania snack?

They came over with the Pennsylvania Dutch (i.e. Deutsch -> German) immigrants.

Most popular brands of pretzels in the US? Rold Gold (founded in Philly), Snyder's of Hanover (PA), Utz (Hanover, PA again).

edit: of course all of those have nothing on soft pretzels.

These specifically are what I would call 'American' or Pennsylvania style' pretzels.

They aren't food, they're poorly implemented landscape fill.

You're perfectly welcome to dislike hard pretzels. But that's no reason to dismiss the rest of the pretzels from the state (or country) -- in fact, the article explicitly calls out soft pretzels from PA (which similarly derive from the Pennsylvania Dutch heritage).

It's a little like calling Oscar Mayer wieners "Chicago hot dogs" and dismissing all sausages in the US.

I'm talking very specifically about Pennsylvanian/ American style grocery store pretzels. Rold Golds, Snyders, and the many many other atrocities masquerading as food on grocery store shelves.

Dry, tasteless or ridiculously salty. Just a blank terrible tasting carb with no redeeming quality.

First of all, fresh pretzels are amazing. Secondly, what about the various tastycakes, stromboli, whoopie pies, funnel cake, water ice, peanut chews, pork roll, and tomato pies?

I'm from near philly and never heard of anyone eating bologna with cream cheese. Even "Philadelphia cream cheese" is actually from NY.

Bologna and creamcheese is literally in the article.

Yes, and the article refers to it as "new and interesting ways" to eat bologna. I'm just saying I've never heard it done before. I don't even associate cream cheese as a philly cuisine as the article claims. Personally, my cream cheese consumption skyrocketed when I moved from the Philly region to NY because a good bagel needs a good schmear

Grew up in Lebanon, PA and have never been on the Bologna tour. Honestly, I'm surprised this is interesting to HN.

They do a Bologna drop for NYE though, so that's fun, I guess.

This ain't got nothing on some good ol Jumbo! Gimme a jumbo with ketchup on Wonder bread any day.

Is that pork roll?

Great stuff. Now I'm hungry.

I literally live in Bologna, AMA

you can't open this unless you're logged in to PA. I don't understand the point of posting this here or why this is on the front page!

I'm many thousands of miles away from PA, and it's loading fine for me.

That's because YCombinator is full of bologna ;)

as another noted, there should be no problem accessing it. I just double checked on tor and vpn. as for why it made it to the front page, all I can say is more often than not I'm surprised at what I post that gets attention over what doesn't. Last night I also posted an article about autism and parental age, was thinking that would get more buzz than this.

either or, more often than not I use hn as just a place to save obscure links with the additional benefit of reading insights from others when the posts get noticed.

whenever I open it, it loads: https://libraries.psu.edu/ask

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