One of the first things I noticed when I moved to Pennsylvania is that there are no meat markets, aka butcher shops.

Back home, in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, etc., there are a lot of small independent businesses that sell beef, pork and chicken. That isn't all they sell; many of them are small groceries as well.

Bruce Weitz played grimy undercover cop Sgt. Michael "Mick" Belker in the 1980s television Hill Street Blues, which didn't really state what city it was situated in, but which appeared to be Chicago. In one episode, he's working the meat case at local butcher shop. A matronly woman comes in and asks if their chicken is fresh. Yes, it is, Mick assures her.

Let me smell it, she demands. He hands her a chicken, and she holds it up to her nose, and tries to inhale the scent from within the body cavity of the chicken. She gives a harumph of disapproval, and Weitz says, "Do you think you could pass that test, lady?" That's the kind of meat market I'm talking about.

Shopping In Cube

I used to stop at Love's Meat Market in Cuba, several times a week. I'd tell Walt Love that I wanted 3 round steaks, about 3/4" thick, and he would pull a leg out of the cooler, put it on the band saw, and cut the steaks while I waited, then put the leg back in the cooler. Cuba's such a small community that when when Walt retired about 20 years ago, the business district consisted of a coin-operated ice vending machine for Amish wanting to buy blocks of ice.

Or I'd go to Sanderson's. Like virtually all the meat markets, they sold a lot of meat by the quarter or by the half, for people wanting to fill their freezer, and they had a nice trade in butchering deer for hunters. Sanderson's, though, made a really interesting homemade baloney. People would drive over to Sanderson's just for the baloney, and they'd get a half-dozen hunks that they could pop into the freezer, defrosting one hunk at a time as they needed it.

Market Forces

In the midwest, supermarkets carry a large variety of cold cuts, from a number of different meat processors. While a huge supermarket in Lancaster may have one or two 30" sections of the refrigerator case displaying lunch meats, a fairly small supermarket back home might have three or four sections. They make up the difference in weiners. Here in Lancaster, there is an immense array of weiners, but back home, there's not much choice, as nobody over the age of 10 eats hot dogs.

I'm not sure how I happened to think about it, but Sanderson's has been on my mind lately. I rarely went there, myself, but I ate a lot of their baloney over the years. That, and Pride of Lima. I'm not sure why they called it Pride of Lima, because nobody seemed particularly proud of eating their baloney, nor for that matter, proud of anything associated with Lima, but their baloney was fairly good.

When Eckrich was still headquartered in Fort Wayne, they and Oscar Meyer were the #1 and #2 baloney in the country, and the #1 and #1 hot dog as well (note the reverse order), which the folks at Eckrich were extremely proud of, since they weren't even nationally-available, as Oscar Meyer was. I wasn't particularly impressed by either product from either company; Pride of Lima had a bit more flavor, when it came to baloney, and Dinner Bell (Eckert Packing, now owned by Morrell) had better hot dogs. Both Eckrich and Oscar Meyer were OK, but they were too soft, having too high a water content.

Fried Baloney

But as I was saying, I'd been thinking about Sanderson's lately, and about their baloney in particular. I've been jonesing for a fried-baloney sandwich. And with no meat market around, at least that I could find, where was I going to find some frying baloney?

Finally, I ended up asking for thick-sliced baloney at Giant, and they cut some for me. Mind you, they didn't cut it the way I wanted it. The pre-packaged stuff comes in two thicknesses - about 3/32" thick, and about 3/16" thick. I asked the clerk for 8 slices about 3/8" thick. Well, it could be worse. She managed to cut it about 1/4" thick.

The Wrong Size

Baloney ought to be about 5" diameter, and nearly red in color. Theirs was about 3.5" in diameter, and was nearly white in color. Ugh! But it was better than what I'd had before. I asked for a 2" hunk of cheese, too, and she cut me off a hunk that was about 1 1/4" thick. If the owner was in the store, as would happen in an independent meat market, he'd never tolerate that. Why are you trying to convince this customer to buy less? He'd straighten her out in three days, that you give the customer all that he asks for, and not a bit less.

But that didn't completely solve the problem. Day after day after day, Blondie would ask me what I wanted for lunch. Fried baloney sandwich. She'd make something else instead. What do I want for supper? Fried baloney sandwich. She'd make something else instead. She asked me if I wanted salad for supper. I'd say, no, I want fried baloney sandwich. Do I want fried baloney on my salad? No, I don't want sandwiches on my salad.

If You Want Something Done

And finally, when she called me to supper tonight, I went into the kitchen, and fried myself up a baloney sandwich. I'm used to bulk baloney having a fairly strong casing on it, and this had no casing. I slitted the meat at 3 o'clock, 6, 9, and 12, about 5/8" in from the edge, and when the meat started to get hot, it turned into an Iron Cross, as one would expect. There must be a lot of sugar in baloney, because this meat quickly gained a rather deep brown on each side. Because it was so small in diameter, and because it was so thin, I put two slices between my bread, and added the requisite Miracle Whip.

I'd say "pretty good" except that it's been more than a decade between fried baloney sandwiches, and this really hit the spot. And although this was Giant's own brand of baloney, it was pretty good flavor meat. I ended up frying another two slices and having a second sandwich.

She Sniffed

Blondie sniffed at my sandwich. "You microwave that?" No, ma'am, I don't generally fry stuff in the microwave. I fry stuff in the skillet. She was half-insulted that I wasn't eating the chicken she'd fixed. "Everyone else seems to think I'm a pretty good cook," she bitched, and I pointed out that I hadn't complained about how she fried baloney, only about the fact that she hadn't fried it at all.

She'd made baked potatoes, broccoli, and skinless chicken breasts covered with some sort of stewed tomatoes or something like that. I ate half a potato, and all the broccoli. They were good, but I really didn't have room for the chicken after I'd eaten my fried baloney sandwiches. "I just never would have thought of frying baloney for supper." I told her that I would have been happy to have it for lunch. "Or lunch" I told her that it's a little unusual, but it'd have been OK for breakfast. "For breakfast? Are you kidding? Baloney's not a breakfast meat."

Yes, ma'am. In this house, baloney hardly exists at all.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
baloney - beef - broccoli - Bruce Weitz - butcher - chicken - Cuba - Dinner Bell - Eckrich - Giant - Hill Street Blues - meat market - Oscar Meyer - Pride of Lima