Ah, The Simple Beauty of a Baloney Sandwich - Dr. Ed Iannuccilli

Ah, The Simple Beauty of a Baloney Sandwich - Dr. Ed Iannuccilli

It was a plain sandwich that my mother often made. Yes, the good old dependable baloney sandwich was my lunch on many a school day when she did not have time to make the potatoes and eggs omelet,  the heaviest sandwich in the world.

I was never disappointed with the baloney on Tip-Top or Wonder Bread, you know, the one that “built strong bodies in eight ways.” In later years, I realized that Wonder Bread, though iconic, was bleached-white, sugar-heavy, and nutrient-enriched. No wonder whole-food products led to the demise of that faux bodybuilder. No wonder I was a runt.

Two slices of baloney and a smack of French’s mustard, the one I thought came from France, slapped in between the cuts. How romantic. I later found out that French's was an American brand of prepared mustard that was created by Robert Timothy French and debuted at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. How un-romantic. How good.

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Oh my God. In the cafeteria one day, we once saw a kid eating a baloney sandwich that was draped in mayonnaise. Horror. Whatever possessed his mother to do that to him? Or us? We had to look at it. And smell it. And watch it drip down the sides of his mouth. (French’s never dripped). Horror autotoxicus! I just thought I’d throw that phrase in cause it seemed to fit. It does and it doesn’t. Oh, well.

Anyway, the baloney was Mom’s staple as was her pat phrase, “Nobody doesn’t love a baloney sandwich.” I envied Richie on those days when he brought what we called the candozza, pronounced kun-dozz. The kun-dozz was some kind of Italian word that meant nothing to us. We morphed its meaning to that of a giant loaf of Italian bread loaded with a bunch of stuff dripping oil, smelling like garlic, and eaten from one end to the other, kind of like a guy playing a giant harmonica. The oil dripping down the sides of Richie’s mouth was much more tolerable than mayonnaise. Ah, the kun-dozz. Something to envy. Except that Richie was still eating when we were leaving the cafeteria to play stickball. “Mumph, heyy, waet-upp, mumff.”

Once my mother tried to secret a piece of Kraft Cheese between the slices of baloney. Mom, what were ya doin’ tadey with the cheese in my sandwich?’

“Edward, cheese is good for you. It’s got calcium.”

“It ruint my sandwich. I ate jes my Twinkies.”

“C’mon. Nobody doesn’t like cheese.”

One of my buddies tried to convince me that a hotdog was rounded-up baloney. One day I sliced a raw one, put it between the Tip Tops, slathered French’s, and took a bite. He was wrong.

The baloney sandwich evokes fond memories of my childhood, of Mom, Richie, his kun-dozz, my friends, and the school cafeteria. A simple sandwich meant simple times.

But I gotta say that now and again I think of and smell Richie’s complicated candozza and my mouth waters. Would I substitute it for baloney today? Would you?