The "So How Do You Pronounce 'Bologna'" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Standing in front of the Lebanon bologna cooler at the Stauffer's of Kissel Hill store near Lititz, Pennsylvania.  Today they have four varieties of bologna as well as full links of Kunzlers bologna.  If you have never eaten a link or slice of bologna, you are truly missing a unique flavor that you won't find anywhere else.  Lebanon bologna (pronounced "leb-nun ba-low-nuh") is different than ordinary bologna since it is not a processed, bland tasting bologna.  

Bologna display at Stauffer's of Kissel Hill store in Lititz, PA.

Lebanon Bologna is all-beef and technically falls under the umbrella of semidry fermented sausage, but more resembles salami, with a distinctive red-wine hue and white specks of glistening fat freckling the surface.  It has a smoky aroma to it that lingers like a meaty campfire.  The first bite yields a special tang with aromatic spices and a creamy sweetness to it.  It was back in the 1800s that immigrant farmers came to the local area from the Rhineland-Palatinate area of Germany.  They brought with them the methods to make the slow-cured sausage of their homeland.  Some believe that the Pennsylvania Dutch arrived in the New World from Holland, but the Pennsylvania Dutch are really from Germany.   As they settled in south-eastern Pennsylvania, they brought with them their slow-cured sausage-making of their homeland.  The Seltzer's Company, from nearby Palmyra, Pennsylvania, is about five minutes from Hershey, Pennsylvania, and is the leading producer of Lebanon Bologna since 1902.  To produce the product, you need beef that is about 85%-95% lean from the forequarter cuts of a steer. It is then coarsely ground and laced with salt, sugar and a blend of spices.  Seltzer's label lists paprika, but it is suspected that there may be cinnamon, clove, ginger, white pepper and allspice in the mixture.  A special probiotic culture is added to aid with curing an fermentation and also to lower the pH level.  The final blend then goes through an additional grind and formed into different sizes from 8 oz. "chubs" to 4-foot, 25 pound "logs."  The product is placed in porous netting and transported to smokers where they will hang from the rafters.   Seltzer's says that the old-fashioned part of the process is the smokehouse which is the 10 narrow, three-story buildings were the bologna is cold-smoked in a haze of hardwood smoke for up to three days.  The Seltzer's plant is the only federally inspected meat plant in the United States that still uses natural smoke rather than the hours-long process using smoke generators.  The company sells bologna in sticks, "chubs" and deli slices.  The bologna comes in a variety of flavors such as the original, the sweet (made with white sugar), double-smoked sweet (made with brown sugar), smoke'n honey (made with brown sugar and honey) and low-salt and low-sodium.  There are many ways to eat the bologna such as in a sandwich with a piece of just about any type of cheese, on a pretzel bun with mustard, with peanut butter or molasses on it in a sandwich or making bologna rolls which my wife makes which are filled with cream cheese.  Personally I love a bologna sandwich with a slice of muenster cheese and mayo on it.  Some say they like the sweet bologna wrapped around a banana.  Every one has different taste buds and need to experiment with the many ways that you can eat one of Lancaster County's favorite products.