Today’s deli cases are full of unusual meats that you may not have ever tried or even heard of: mortadella, Thuringer sausage, bresaola, and more. Just in the category of bologna alone, there are multiple options, among them German and American. Though bologna is often the butt of jokes and dismissed as a poor-quality meat, there are some good reasons why it’s an iconic lunchtime sandwich staple: Its method of production — smoked or cured — means it stores well in a refrigerator, it is ubiquitous in grocery stores everywhere, and it’s more affordable than many other luncheon meats since it’s prepared with meat trimmings and byproducts.
But while good old American bologna (or “baloney,” depending on where you’re from) is likely something you’ve been familiar with since childhood, the same might not be true about German bologna or certain other types of the sausage, which originated in Western Europe, particularly Bologna, Italy (duh!), and Germany. The standard American bologna you’re probably well acquainted with is, at its core, a big hot dog.
The skinny on the sausages we call bologna
Like your average frankfurter, most bologna, including American style, is made with a combination of ground meats — usually beef pork, turkey, and chicken — that are packed into an edible casing, which may be made from either the submucosa of an animal’s small intestine or the collagen found in animal hides. Many people believe bologna contains organ meats and offal, but mostly this is untrue, except for certain types such as ring bologna, which is recognizable for its red, waxy casing. Many versions of American bologna are all beef, but they are prepared the same way and have a similar flavor to their mixed-meat cousins. According to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (yes, that is a real organization!), finished bologna/hot dog products may by law contain no more than 30% fat and 10% water.
Varieties of bologna differ; for example, while American bologna and mortadella, an Italian bologna, are similarly made, American bologna contains finely ground meat, with no pieces of fat visible, whereas mortadella contains larger chunks of meat that are visible in slices. There’s also Lebanon bologna, named after the town in Pennsylvania where Dutch settlers especially enjoy this semi-dry, all-beef, smoked sausage.
As for German bologna, it differs from the American style in terms of its spices. American bologna, which looks very similar to the German variety, gets its flavor from spices usually associated with pickling, such as allspice, black pepper, and even coriander. Importantly, its signature flavor often comes from myrtle berry, which grows near the Mediterranean. German bologna, on the other hand, is known for having a more pungent flavor that comes from garlic or garlic powder in its spice blend, and sometimes paprika.
