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Comment by chiph | Hacker News Reader

> artisanal bologna

Two words I never thought I'd see next to each other.

Growing up we ate the Oscar Meyer product. Not great, but when you're 10 years old, it's fine. But they've got a point - bologna for adult tastes just doesn't exist, and someone should give it a whirl.

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They call it mortadella, and it features pistachios.

What Americans call bologna, it isn't what Italians call bologna or mortadella.

Whatever the hell is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_sausage vs the real deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortadella

But to be honest I always thought mortadella was overrated. I'm more of a salame kind of guy.

>it isn't what Italians call bologna

Nitpicking, but Italians don't call it Bologna anyway. In Italy Bologna is just one very specific thing: a city (where I'm from :))

specifically, traditionally mortadella from Bologna is without pistaches, I prefer the variant we have in central Italy (the one from Rome), that always contains them.

Original mortadella was born in Latium, Bologna made it popular.

Yeah, and we have zero products called "Bologna" nor the awful "baloney". That food looks more like salame tipo Praga.

I'm from Piedmont, and I've heard it called bologna a couple times, though I know mortadella is the common name.

I've read that bologna was invented as a knock off mortadella. If true, it makes sense that there isn't really "artisanal" bologna.

> honest I always thought mortadella was overrated

> I'm more of a salame kind of guy.

two times wrong:

- mortadella is delicious, if you don't like it, fine, you're the rounding error, but nobody is over selling it, people just love it because what's not to love about it?

- salame is not an alternative to mortadella, it's a completely different product (mortadella is cooked, salame is air-dried), in the same way a steak is not an alternative to bresaola (same animal, different process).

um, they're both food, are they not?

and yeah salame definitely better.

> um, they're both food, are they not?

ice cream and broccoli are both food too...

> and yeah salame definitely better.

according to your taste maybe, and that's completely fine

but AFAIK people love them both.

Go to a sandwich shop that has them both, and you'll probably find two sandwiches on the menu that are identical up to substituting salami and mortadella.

I would be very surprised to find a menu anywhere, except for maybe in some high modernist bullshit cuisine, that substitutes ice cream and broccoli.

Ever been to Italy, where nortadella is from?

I can assure you it is the contrary.

Mortadella is also more popular because it is perceived as lighter and with a smoother flavour.

more specifically they're both what we'd call "lunch meats" in the US

The pictured mortadella with olives looks interesting. I'd wanna try that.

Those are pistachios, not olives.

Some have olives as well, I tried it myself years ago. Mortadella is delicious though in the US there are two versions for sale. I forgot which, is the one that is a bit too dry and not to my taste. In my 40s now I stay away from processed meats as much as I can.

I see this marketed all the time as olive loaf here in Appalachia. There's a lot of Italian influence here in the coal fields, but most of the Italian product names have died off.

The second image on the page depicts mortadela with pistachios.

But I am talking about the fourth image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Mortadel...

Mortadela_com_azeitonas.jpg

Auto translate tells me that "azeitonas" [Portuguese (Brazil) detected] translates to "olives" in english.

Yes, that's the correct translation of azeitonas.

That's because what is sold in America as bologna is mostly an American product and not actually descended from Italy. Like many things in the US, it was produced and sold by and for immigrants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZaOK0Cj3ug

> and it features pistachios.

Doesn't have to. Although they are common.

There's also the slavic "doctors sausage"[1], which ideally has much less fillers in it than American Bologna, but is very similar in concept.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor%27s_sausage

I remember watching a youtube video on Doctor Sausage. Next time I meet an older/elderly Eastern European who lived in the Soviet Union I should ask them how they remember it.

EDIT: here it is, this is the video I saw, includes one interview with a babushka:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcxQBkdughc

I still see doctors sausage on sale in most of the Eastern European shops here, I'm told the recipe/process hasn't changed at all.

The recipe was carved into law a few different times.

They also call it Lebanon Bologna, and it's pretty easy to make from scratch at home. Common in Amish areas of the USA.

https://www.myfermentation.com/meat-and-fish/Lebanon-bologna...

I just realized I've never had bologna as an adult. Curious to try a bologna sandwich now.

Pan fry it and put it between white bread with pickle slices and a little mayo + salt/pepper

Delicios but really unhealthy in my oppinion

Don't worry I'm not expecting this to be healthy or become a staple of my diet lol

About every five years or so I feel like I don't remember why I don't eat bologna so I buy a pound and eat baloney sandwiches for a week (because when I eat sandwiches I do the sameish sandwich all week). After about three days I go to the bathroom and remember why I don't eat bologna sandwiches regularly.

It's very fatty and greasy.

If health is the only reason you eat food I feel really bad for you.

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