Fried Bologna & Other Southern Sandwiches
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Southern Plate is more than just me typing and chatting away. In fact, YOU are the most important part of SouthernPlate.com. With that in mind, I hope you’ll take time to leave a comment and share your favorite sandwich from your childhood. See bottom of this post for more details! Gratefully, Christy 🙂 
When my mama was a girl they had a tradition of going out riding through the countryside on Sunday afternoons. They’d stop off at a little store to have thick slices of bologna cut off and made into bologna and cheese sandwiches. Pair that with a bottled drink and they were living high on the hog! “There just wasn’t anything like getting to ride in that car and look out the window while you ate a bologna sandwich!”.
This treat was passed down to my generation when we often sat down for lunch with a big loaf of bread and a stack of cheese slices in the middle of the table while Mama fried up bologna in a skillet. We’d each make our own sandwich and I’d make mine just like my brother did: Fried bologna, cheese, and potato chips settled in between two pieces of “loaf bread”.
Bologna sandwiches, sometimes referred to as “the poor man’s steak”, are such a part of our culture, they’re even used to gauge a person’s character. On the day we got married, my husband’s best man, Jim, had driven in a ways and was planning on staying overnight before heading back. He stayed with my Grandmother, who lived across the road from what was to be our new home. It had been quite a day with the wedding and reception and that evening Grandmama and Jim went out on her porch to relax and look out over the river.
For supper, Grandmama made the two of them bologna sandwiches.
To Grandmama, Jim and my husband represented a new generation, with a huge divide between folks her age and them. Grandmama had grown up dirt poor and picking cotton all of her life and here was this young man newly graduated from college with an engineering degree whose experience with her world had been nothing more than glancing at the cotton as the car went by. Its sometimes a little intimidating for folks who come from such humble backgrounds in situations like this, but when Jim accepted that bologna sandwich, it spoke volumes to Grandmama about the type of person he was at heart. Even now whenever he is mentioned she always chimes, in,
“That Jim is just a real good boy, he sat out there on the porch and ate a bologna sandwich with me”.
To make the sandwich from my childhood you’ll need: Bread, cheese, mayo…
and potato chips 🙂
My brother taught me the wonders of a potato chip sandwich over thirty years ago.
I think it almost made up for him cutting the entire side of my hair off a few years later.
Now we have to fry out bologna. I always cut a slit halfway through to keep it from curling up into a bowl as it fries.
I prefer Zeigler bologna because it is made in Alabama. I try to buy as close to home as I can because last thing we want is to end up relying on a company halfway across the country for our food supplies. I think it’s best to support local suppliers to ensure that you have local suppliers. Zeigler’s has been around for over seventy five years. Their main plant is in Tuscaloosa and our own highly respected Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant was once an owner of the company as well.
Reminder to all: I am not into football but Alabamians take their football very seriously.
So whatever team you are for, GO THEM!
You don’t need to spray your pan or anything, just put your bologna in it and cook it on medium, turning after it browns on one side. Some folks like there is just barely heated but I actually like a wee bit of black on mine 🙂
Note to myself: You use the word “actually” too much, stop it. Now. Seriously.
~sighs~
Oh lawd, that’s some good eatin’!
I always smoosh it a bit to crunch the chips down some 🙂
Grandmama, I’m a real good girl because I still eat bologna sandwiches!
A few posts back we got into a comment discussion on strange sandwich combinations we grew up on. It was a fascinating comment section and we all really got a hoot out of reading it. I’d like to devote this comment section to those sandwiches. What did you grow up on? What brands do you insist on and why?
Mayonaise sandwich? Mustard sandwich? PB and banana? Tell us all about it! Also, why do you think Southerners eat such strange sandwich combinations-ketchup sandwich, anyone?
I think it is due to lack of food. When food was scarce, you could put something between two slices of bread, call it a sandwich and then it suddenly seemed like a meal. What do you think?
If there is anything else you wanna talk about in the comments section, feel free to do that, too.
See someone else’s comment you wanna reply to? Go right ahead!
I consider this to be my big old porch and we’re all just a standing around visiting with each other.
Y’all keep the conversation going and I’ll keep the tea glasses filled!
We’re all family here anyways. 🙂
“The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.”
Submitted by Rebecca Hall. To submit your quote or read more, please click here.
I just love getting new positive quotes so thank you in advance!
Another favorite is the BLT. Home grown tomatoes, fresh thick bacon from the hog my grandfather slaughtered and smoked in his smoke house, crisp lettuce between 2 slices of toasted white bread with a big ole slap of Blue Plate Mayonaise. Top it all off with salt and pepper! A meal fit for a king!!!
So many memories here! I agree with Christy that traditions were often a lack of food. We always had a bedtime snack no matter how lean the budget but I can tell you that some of those sandwiches were creative to say the least. I have had many ketchup sandwiches as well as cold soup beans which thicken into a paste, cucumber slices, and even salt and pepper merely sprinkled onto buttered bread. I laugh to myself when I see little tea sandwiches of cucumber because now they are fashionable and we ate them because that is what we had. I still love PB&J sandwiches, PB and sliced dill pickle are good too although they don’t sound so appealing. Nothing finer than a “tomater” sandwich with mayo and I prefer Hellman’s although it has gotten pricey and I often settle for something cheaper.I like fried baloney-think it tastes like a hotdog. Pimento cheese spread is still a winner. When money is tight I still make egg salad and love it. I never really feel deprived because these are my comfort foods and I would choose them above caviar or something exotic yet today. Grilled cheese and canned tomato soup is a terrific supper on a cold winter’s night.
We always had fried bologna (the cheapest was all we could afford) and I ate mine with ketchup on white bread. My mom and everyone else I know would add lettuce and tomato, but I don’t think we ever had fried bologna with cheese. Only the cold stuff with cheese.
Oh Christy, I LOVE fried bologna sandwiches..growing up my favorite summer sandwich was pineapple and cheese with mayo on white bread!
Oh, gracious!This is fun thinking back of family memories.Young people today really miss something if they choose not to socialize with their elders. We loved fried bologna sandwiches (some of our local restaurants have started making them too). Grew up on tomato/miracle whip sandwiches, along with peanut butter buns (real oohey and goohey!And this was served at school if you didn’t like the plate lunches.) I’ve got one you probably can’t imagine, “Mashed potato sandwich, cold at that”! On a Sunday after dinner, I’ll get a hankerin’ for one after finishing the dishes. Have a sign on my porch, “Welcome to The Porch”. Just perfect sittin’ with a friend or lover sipping ice tea or lemonade.Time flys! But memories last forever.
Keep doing what you’re doing Christy, it’s a good thing!
Sandy in Kentucky (I’m a quilter too, and like Jeanne Robertson)
I, too, love mashed potato sandwiches, have you tried mashed potatoes in a biscuit? In the summer I make a big pan of flat biscuits and we have tomato biscuits, with or without mayonnaise.
My sons friends liked them too.
Janet F in NC
Oh my I just remembered the pork and beans on a bun with mustard. And a big pot of taters fresh green beans onions and a ring of bologna all boiled together of a sunday. hugs Sally
Oh my I remember those balogna sandwitches so fondly, but my favorite memory of one of my favorite sandwitches is the weiner sandwitch. Not a hot dog, mind you, but a weiner sandwitch. You took 2 pieces of bread, a big ole slap of mayonaise and enough weiners cut in half (long-ways) to cover the bread. Of course you fried the long-ways sliced weiners in a pan first. You covered the weiners and bread with cheese and another slice of bread. That was heaven! It really brings back fond memories of my childhood.
P.S. Another favorite still is tomato sandwiched. Wonderful tasting homegrown tomatoes.
AMEN! We lived “in town” but had a garden out in the country a few years. We’d go twice a week and pick and then spend the rest of the week, shucking and shelling, freezing and canning. When we went to pick, mother would take a loaf of bread a jar of mayo, and a knife. We’d make tomato sandwiches with fresh picked tomatoes. STILL love them. And bacon makes them just a little better.