The Town Thats Full’a Bologna

Salty! Slimey! Fried!

Come and get it.

A flesh hued disc, grilled to a crisp and deposited on a hamburger bun, served to you from the hands of a U.S. Naval Recruit

This is America.

A "meating place" for the
St. Clair County town of 2,222 people.

For 32 years the festival has been crowning Bologna Kings and Queens.

Their names are read off of a scroll by “the Roy Family”, owners of C. Roy Inc. the outfit that produces the spiced meat.

5$ gets you a simple sandwich.

Meat and a semi-soggy bun.

Bologna, as we all know, is a sausage made from ground pork, beef, chicken, turkey, or any combination of the latter.

The sausage originated in Bologna, Italy, where it was derived from the popular Italian sausage, mortadella.

From there the sausage was brought to parts of Appalachia, the Midwest, the South, and Pennsylvania by German immigrants.

Typically a cheap meat, it was very accessible during the Great Depression. In the 1930s, it was common for people to buy slices of bologna at the deli and take it home and use it to prepare the lunch pails for work the next day.

Most people at the festival were Yale locals.

Those who traveled in were summoned there by a nostalgic taste for their childhood lunch.

Fueled by the pink delicacy, a Bologna Ring throwing contest is held.

This young man tossed his meat
185 feet down Main Street.

The throw is followed, naturally, by an outhouse race. Each outhouse must include a toilet and reading material. This year's race was won by the local construction company and their hellish hot box of a toilet.

Every community needs an anchor. For Yale, it is a tube of meat, affixed to one’s chest with a chain or perched up on their head. Representing their full bellies and celebrating another summer baking under the sun…

See you next week,

-niki

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