Passport & Plate - Barbeque Bologna
Canada | Thursday, March 5, 2015 | 3 photos
Ingredients
3-5lb Chub (or Roll) of Bologana - you will normally have to ask your butcher or the meat department of your grocery store for this
BBQ sauce of your choosing
How to prepare this recipePreheat BBQ to 300 degrees.
Cut splices (known as scoring) into the bologna roll two inches deep and about one and a half inches apart in a spiral. Make sure not to go all the way through. You want the roll to remain one whole piece.
Now take the BBQ sauce and squeeze a thin layer across the entire bologna. Use your hands to work it down into the crevices.
Now that the Bologna is coated with sauce, it's ready for the smoker.
Place bologna roll on a spit in barbecue.
Barbecue 10-15 minutes until the splices in the boll start to open up, and again baste with barbecue sauce.
Cook for an addition 20 minutes and baste again.
Close lid and cook for 2 hours at approx 300 degrees. Check the roll regularly and if it's starting to burn cover the roll with foil for the remainder of the cooking time.
Remove from BBQ.
Cut slices of the roll and serve.
Goes great with beans and buns.
The story behind this recipeBologna isn't known for being a gourmet food, and Saskatchewan, Canada is not known for being a culinary hotspot, but our family's BBQ bologna deserves a Michelin star.
I can't recall the first time I ate the dish. Neither for that matter can my mother, her sister or brother. Even my grandfather, who I always assumed was the inventor, cannot recall its origins. He does recall his mother and father eating it, and I have to assume that they saw their mother and father eating it too.
While the origins of BBQ bologna remain lost in time, its place in our family is crystal clear. It's what we eat on warm summer days at our small cabin on Lac Pelletier; a tiny lake that sits on the outskirts of the small prairie town of Swift Current, Saskatchewan. The cabin is the place we all congregate for a week in July each year. The family, once concentrated in this small town, is now spread out across the country. Myself, I live in Vancouver, and the week at the cabin is when I reconnect with my roots. But that reunion is never complete until I experience the delicious wafting smell of baloney on the BBQ.
It's a strange dish. There is no doubt about that. My friends have never heard of anything like it and my girlfriend, a Brazilian, was skeptical when my grandfather placed a slice on her plate for the first time. But just like every other skeptic that came before her, she’s now a convert – a true bologna lover. The fact that she comes from the land of Picanha (delicious Brazilian steak), I think that says something.
Despite my love for it, I have no illusions that BBQ bologna will hit the mainstream. In fact, I once thought about taking a crack at it myself, in my BBQ, at my home in Vancouver. But then I realized, without the warm lake breeze, without the buzz of my family eagerly waiting for it to be done, without my grandfather, now 85, proudly standing at the helm of the BBQ, it just wouldn’t be the same.
And I don’t want to ruin my appetite for next year.
