9 Nasty Truths About Your Favorite Foods
Famous Death Row Last Meals
Special to AOL from Dr. Don Kinsman
When I was a child growing up in
Oh, there was also now and then a slab of head cheese which only my Father would eat... along with a slice of the Limburger my Mother insisted he keep wrapped up in aluminum foil on the outside kitchen window ledge. But his guilty pleasures are worth a story all their own.
Then one day all those wonderful meats simply disappeared.
Butch said that the butcher who made them had gone out of business and would not give anyone the recipe. Over the years I have found some pretty good replacements for these long lost goodies -- even for the Dutch loaf -- but they all involve trips to delis, or "foodie markets" featuring meats made by smaller butcher operations and the trip isn't always convenient. So, I have sampled the offerings of a good number of the major commercial, easily available varieties and have settled on a few which are passable for everyday use -- and at least one I downright like a lot.
I find Hillshire Farm's Deli Sliced Honey Ham to be tasty and quite acceptable for a lunchtime sandwich. Personally I favor putting it on lightly buttered bread with good mustard. I like varying the mustard, but am partial to ones that are grainy, stone ground, and dark.
While taste should be paramount, the ol' blood triglyceride levels have made me somewhat fat-content-conscious over the last few years. So, I have honed in on a couple of turkey-based versions of the old fashioned, high fat lunchmeats I have always craved. Oscar Mayer makes a turkey version of cotto salami which I like. I have to admit that I have never been a dyed-in-the-wool cotto fan so I don't have a benchmark to go by, but I find this lunchmeat to be satisfying enough in a sandwich, usually with cheese.
Oscar Mayer also makes a turkey bologna, which I'll use a low-fat substitute. I must admit that eating a slice all by itself without the bread and other "fixins" reminds me that in spite of its often mysterious origins the full-fat bologna does taste better. But this turkey bologna, when slapped onto a slice of old-fashioned white bread with a little margarine and a slice of what I call "phony cheese" (you know, one of those no-fat, individually wrapped mystery slabs) evokes just enough good memories of my "fat-be-darned days" and is tasty enough that I'll let it slide.
With no qualifications about healthiness, taste, or anything else, I do like Oscar Mayer's hard salami. Okay, it IS a bit higher in fat than I feel comfortable with these days, but after all -- it's salami. Thus, I have devised a sort of justification system for scarfing down a handful of slices on buttered white bread. My wife and I periodically invite guests over and I'll make a salad of artichokes, tomatoes and olives with pieces of salami. Well, you always have left over salami and it would just be wrong to waste it, right?
I have tried various brands and forms of salami for this recipe, but find the Oscar Mayer packaged salami slices to be best and when I eat them later I find that a few slices stacked together give just the right texture and thickness. And, most important of all, they taste really good to me.
After all, as a character whose name I forget in a teen comedy movie whose name I also forget once said: "I can't live without salami." (Editor's note: It's "Zapped", but I suppose I'll let that slide, Dad)
Do you like Dutch loaf and salami, or is all that just baloney to ya? Post your comments below.
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11-04-2007 @8:57PM tonya said... COMMENTS 35 THAT WAS GOOD I REMEMBER WHEN THOSE DAYS
MY MOM AND MY SISTER WOULD GO WAIT IN A MILE LONG LINE TO GET THAT CHEESE. AND WE WOULD JUST MELT WITH IT,I MEAN WHEN THEY FIXED IT FOR US. LOL & SMILE.
WOW !!!
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11-07-2007 @5:21PM Angela Ratliff said... Fried baloney (bologna), mayo and fresh garden tomato sandwiches Yummy.
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11-25-2007 @12:00PM Joltin' Django said... Duke's mayo is the best freakin' mayo on the planet:
nashville-eats.blogspot.com/2007/08/dukes-mayo-rules.html
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12-04-2007 @4:29PM Frank said... I don't know what Dutch load is but just outside of the Chicago area we had a thing called Old Fashioned Loaf or also called Family Loaf and that is by far my favorite. I now live in the San Francisco Bay area and no one carries Oscar Meyer Old Fashioned Loaf or Oscar Meyer Hard Salami. I agree with the article. Ocar Meyer Salami is my favorite Salami too. The others, no matter how fancy they may be, lack flavor.
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12-04-2007 @7:26PM Don said... Love the "Dutch Loaf" but can't find it where I'm at in S.E. Mass. Can anyone tell me where I can find it. Really great with L,T & MAYO !!
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12-04-2007 @7:27PM roseann said... Boars Head is the worst. Slimy. Yuck.!
Isalys was from Ohio and after they sold out, so many people wanted it they gave the recipe to a local chain. Sell out all the time.
Chipped ham, grilled,american cheese, lettuce, tomato, Yum.!!
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12-12-2007 @6:24PM Missy said... There is a lunch meat I achualy crave. Lebanon Bologna- spread it with cream cheese and roll it up into a tube-makes a yummy treat!
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12-18-2007 @5:49PM Leighton Smith said... I Think the B L T beats any cold cut sandwich.
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12-24-2007 @10:36AM Christine said... I picked hard salami but I love sandwiches.
I like chipped chopped ham-cold or hot. Take it and heat it in a pan add Heinz ketchup or BBQ sauce and put it on a toasted bun and add a slice of your favorite cheese. I like Baby Swiss. You can even melt it under the broiler. If eaten cold I like Miracle Whip or yellow mustard.
Beef bologna, Miracle Whip, beef steak tomato and a slice of Longhorn cheese.
Canned corned beef, swiss cheese, sliced Heinz Dill pickles on seeded rye bread. It is getting harder to find a grocery store deli that will carry it so I buy it in the small cans.
I love all hams and I am getting that way with turkey too.
Isaly's is from Pittsburgh PA but they had it in Akron Ohio too. Giant Eagle (from Pittsburgh PA) sells it still and other stores are carrying it now too.
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12-30-2007 @8:10AM Laura said... I'm a New Yorker as well and I grew up on COLD CUTS and Hellmann's Mayo! "Lunch Meat" just doesn't sound appetizing and Miracle Whip????? Yuck!!
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1-11-2008 @9:14PM Momma bear said... My grandfather had no teeth for many years towards the end of his life. No dentures, just ate soft food and food that was cut up very small. My favorite thing to do as a child was to join my grandparents on their screened porch at lunchtime. I always ate my lunch first and then walked the two doors over.
Lunchtime was a time of great invention at their house. They seemed to take joy in how many different ingredients could be combined.My grandfather's specialty: liverwurst spread on firm white bread and topped with pickle relish and grape jelly. He loved it and would get a huge grin on his face while gumming it! :) Grandma was the queen of juice mixing. She did not drink alcohol so I know she wasn't mixing up new cocktails. And it was always enjoyed out of a jelly glass with a bendy straw. Happy summer memories! :)
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1-11-2008 @6:20PM Ruth said... Love liverwurst (or braunschweiger) cut from a hunk, on rye bread with seeds, with mustard. The bread should be buttered with sweet butter. I prefer Hellman's mayonnaise on sandwiches or with tomato and lettuce. It always had the distinctive Hellman's flavor for years, but I noticed a little change in the flavor when another company started making it - still love it. Miracle Whip has another flavor because it's a salad dressing, not mayonnaise. However, I use both in my potato salad, along with sour cream. Must be my Brooklyn deli taste from many years ago when I was little. It's hard to find now, but I also like the deli sliced baked Virginia ham with the slightly sweet topping. We've always referred these meats as "cold cuts" when you knew the main ingredient was really meat.
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1-17-2008 @2:29PM Gerald Strobel said... Boar's Head products head and sholders over any others, especially their olive loaf and sopressata
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1-18-2008 @2:24PM Beth said... Wunderbar Bologna all the way baby!
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1-23-2008 @2:47AM deb said... Regional food differences are very interesting here in the US. I am from the south--NC-- and our family also used Miracle whip on sandwichs but Duke's was also popular as well. Miracle whip was especially popular in the black community as it is lighter than Mayo and it has a bit of paprika in it for spice and it is a tad sweeter. Duke's is a great mayo but those in the north who want to try it should not despair as Hellman's is just the name Duke uses out of its southern territories--a little known fact.
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1-18-2008 @4:24PM JS said... "DO NOT USE LUNCH MEAT OR LUNCHEON MEAT WHEN ORDERING COLD CUTS FROM A DELI!"
I'll call it whatever I want,.
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1-23-2008 @4:58AM bill said... great meats lebonan balony,krakoska and kielbosi were always in the butcher shop in upstate pa. I miss the good meats that people made and remember the dutch loaf,olive loaf.blood pudding,souse.and the rest of the stuff that is not good for you.It brings back old times when life was more simple and you did notr worry about what you should not eat.
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