Remember the scene from “Titanic” when Molly Brown, played by Kathy Bates, scrubbed the smut and squalor off Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jack Dawson, by letting him borrow her son’s tuxedo? This is what Marcus Willis and Barque have done to the bologna sandwich.
Bologna in America has the reputation of being lowbrow, the last resort of all cold cuts. I’ve heard people say that even though it’s spelled like the Italian city of Bologna, there’s a reason why it rhymes with “phony.” It’s even considered an insult when somebody refers to another person as being “full of baloney.” Back in elementary school, it’s what your mama packed in your lunchbox for the field trip to the aquarium because it was cheaper than roast beef, honey baked ham and sliced turkey breast.
Nowadays, I can afford the finest mortadella the world has to offer, but nostalgia always settles in. I end up hovering over a stove, frying three slices of red-ringed bologna in a hot buttered skillet, always poised for when heat starts to make the slices dome. That’s when I jab each slice with a fork and let the steam spew from the holes. Once nice and fried — borderline charred — the bologna gets a few squirts of yellow mustard before being sandwiched between two slices of regular white bread. (Shady’s Corner has a more primitive version of this sandwich for $3.)
Smoked bologna sandwich
Where: Barque BBQ, 2309 E. Main St.