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--> --> Aug. 20: Bologna is also baloney By Jeff Cheek Bologna, Italy has been blessed by nature. Sitting on a shoulder of the Apennines, the city of half a million gazes northward to the Po Valley. The terrain led to Bologna's nickname "Bologna la Grassa" (Bologna, the fat). Mountains to the west supported vineyards and orchards for wine and fruit while the lush Po Valley contributed vegetables and grains. The Po also provided transportation for seafood from the Adriatic. This happy accident gave Bologna the nickname. It is also considered the gastronomic capital of Italy. Other civilizations also took advantage of this favorable location. Originally, Bologna was the Etruscan city of Felsina. When the Romans conquered northern Italy in the 2nd century BC, they renamed the city Pononia. This evolved into Bologna. It is the capital city of the Emilia-Romagna region and the site of San Domenico Cathedral. Saint Dominic, founder of the Domenican Order died in Bologna in 1221. The cathedral is his burial site. The city also claims to be the site of the world's oldest university, predating Germany's Veidelberg, England's Oxford and The Sorbonne in Paris. There is a certain amount of logic to this claim. While these other centers of learning, as well as Salamanca in Spain, had master's teaching their specific disciplines to devoted followers, Bologna was the first university to have many masters teaching various branches of knowledge in a single framework. A student could learn medicine at Heidelberg for example. At Bologna he was required to learn other disciplines. Our colleges label this a curriculum. The word comes from the Latin word for a circular racetrack. A winner was not crowned until he had completed a circle; a student was not educated until he had been exposed to a wide circle of knowledge. Food historians acknowledge these facts, but stoutly insist that Bologna's greatest claim to fame is being the birthplace of Italian cooking. Bologna is the birthplace of traditional dishes such as lasagna, cannelloni and manicotti but it gave its name to only one product: a cooked and smoked sausage called bologna or baloney. Both names are in the dictionary. Bologna is like a once famous actor whose looks and skills have been ravaged by time. The name lives on but the glory has departed. Bologna is sometimes called "the poor man's beefsteak." It is cheap and nourishing, but is a long way from the original sausage. At one time, bologna was a gourmet sausage. In today's Italy they still call it "mortadella" which pinpoints its noble lineage. In the 14th Century the monks of Bologna were the pork butchers for the city. They created a new sausage, using pork and spices. It was boiled, pounded into a mush, then smoked. This was "mortaio della carne di maiale" or a mortar of pig's meat. This elaborate title was truncated into mortadella. We choose to call it bologna. A bologna sandwich is nourishing and inexpensive. It can also be used to make a tasty Olive-Bologna salad. INGREDIENTS: 2 slices bologna 1 cup chopped celery 1 cup black olives 1 bell pepper Vinegarette salad dressing PREPARATION: Cut bologna into bite sized pieces. Remove stem and seeds from pepper, cut into quarter inch pieces. Mix all four ingredients, add desired amount of vinegarette. Chill and serve. Jeff Cheek lives in Medford Email your... Technical questions & comments to: WebMaster Daily Tidings editorial comments & questions to: Editor Visit our other Oregon Newspapers... | Albany Democrat-Herald | Ashland Daily Tidings | Corvallis Gazette-Times | | Lebanon Express | Newport News-Times | Springfield News | Cottage Grove Sentinel | Ashland Daily Tidings 1661 Siskiyou Blvd. Ashland, OR 97520 Telephone 541-482-3456 © Copyright 2001 Lee Northwest Publishing