Skip to main content

Ohio Proud—Trail Bologna and Swiss Cheese

Do you know what this is? I thought everyone knew, but I understand it's a mystery to some. Or maybe it's just the meat that's in it that is the mystery.

This is Trail bologna. Trail is capitalized because it's named after the little town of Trail, Ohio which is a bit like a smudge on the road. I'm not disparaging the town so much as I am trying to describe the size of it. I've read the town was named for a well-known trail that native Americans had beaten down before the Europeans moved in.

In 1912, the Troyer family started making this bologna in Trail, and the family still has quite a little general store and meat processing business. During hunting season, you can take your deer kill to the store, and they'll butcher it for you. They'll even turn the whole animal into bologna, if that's what you like.

People who serve Trail bologna usually slice it kind of thin and serve it on a platter with cubes of Swiss cheese. Central Ohio is full of all kinds of things, but mostly Swiss cheese.

These photos, by the way, were taken in the refrigerator section of my local grocery store, with the two items side by side. Not only are the two things served together, they're sold together, too.

What do people eat where you live that the rest of us might not know about?

Comments

MmeBenaut said…
Well, kangaroo is on the menu at the Warrawong Sanctuary Restaurant. I must admit that I found that a bit strange!
11:16 AM
Lori Lamb said…
Love your blog! I grew up in Ohio and am coming back for a visit (to the Akron area) in Sept and I'd love to buy some Trail Bologna. Any idea where I can purchase it in the Akron area?

Thanks for your help!
7:11 PM
J said…
Did you know that the Troyers were not the first family to make this Trail Bologna? They purchased the recipe for $25 from the Weiss family who lived in Trail, Ohio and had been making it for some time.
4:45 PM
Anonymous said…
TRAIL BOLOGNA!!!! Apparenlty growing up in OHIO and having being born in PA where I spent every summer I grew believing that trail bologna/ring bologna was a common settlers staple...guess NOT!!! I wanted to use it to make my boys "lunchables". Not happenin in the south! SO I have family members in OHIO on the search which for them ought to be easy as this is common at "home". Being a military family I thought I could get it at the commissary as they sometimes carry the odd and unusual (who knew trail bologna would be in that catagory) from all over so ppl stationed in other areas have "home" foods. Nope...but if I get a UPS they will see if they can get it...Next trip to OH is in December...guess what I plan to carry home?! Great blog with great info! Long live trail bologna! :)
Avien
USMC~Wife
Parris Island SC
9:21 AM
Anonymous said…
TRAIL BOLOGNA!!!! Apparenlty growing up in OHIO and having being born in PA where I spent every summer I grew believing that trail bologna/ring bologna was a common settlers staple...guess NOT!!! I wanted to use it to make my boys "lunchables". Not happenin in the south! SO I have family members in OHIO on the search which for them ought to be easy as this is common at "home". Being a military family I thought I could get it at the commissary as they sometimes carry the odd and unusual (who knew trail bologna would be in that catagory) from all over so ppl stationed in other areas have "home" foods. Nope...but if I get a UPS they will see if they can get it...Next trip to OH is in December...guess what I plan to carry home?! Great blog with great info! Long live trail bologna! :)
Avien
USMC~WIFE
Parris Island SC
9:21 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No More Mr. Nice Guy

It's good to be a nice person--to say nice things, to do nice things, to write nice things--but I declare an end to the use of the word nice. Nice is what you say when you can't think of any other adjective. Someone shows you a picture of their back yard--that's nice. Someone tells you about their afternoon adventure--that's nice. Or someone describes their childhood in great detail and sometimes with painstaking effort--that's nice. It's a lazy word, and it's non-descriptive. Nice is like mashed potatoes with noodles and chicken gravy all in a big pile on one plate with some canned corn for garnish. Everything is the same color and texture and base substance--starch (this is a favorite Amish dish). Nice is like a partly cloudy day in April when outside feels like inside, and you can't tell a difference between the lighting and the temperature of your living room and the lighting and temperature of your front yard. Nice is a glass of lukewarm water. ...
20 comments
Read more

Long Live Anita Bowser

You know I occasionally check my hometown newspaper's website to scan the obituaries (morbid, I know, but I'm at that age). Over this past weekend, I read the obituary of Indiana State Senator Anita Bowser . She was a noted Democrat who championed causes protecting the neediest in the state's population. She was respected on both sides of the aisle for her intelligence and plain and outspoken approach to law making. The picture on her senate page is lovely. I remember none of those things about Anita Bowser . My first year or so in college was spent at a branch of Purdue University, and in the early 80s, Anita was a political science professor. She taught my American Government class my freshman year, and she was a mess. Somewhere in my old text book, I have a sketch of her drawn on a particularly dull day in class--her hose sagged at her ankles, her slip showed at least half an inch all the way around, her hair had been slept on but not brushed, and her bright red lip stic...
18 comments
Read more

My Sitemeter is All Bloated and Not Quite Itself

I'm tempted to let it sit on the couch with its feet curled up under a blanket, a hot cup of coffee in hand, a block of cherry almond bark Chocolove within reach, and An Affair to Remember spinning in the DVD player. I'm one of those obsessive bloggers, the kind who checks her sitemeter as often as possible throughout the day, the kind who gauges the quality of her writing by the number of readers who regularly stop by. I've become less interested in the overall number of hits and more interested in the number of repeat hits. The return visitors are the ones I long for. When my sitemeter reads forty at the end of the day, and the majority of those hits are webpals who have conversed, I'm happy. Forty may seem low to many of you, but I've only been at this since August. To me, forty is a jackpot. A few days ago, I sat down at my laptop and discovered a number somewhere in the eighties. Eighties! Yippee! Yeeha ! Hoo-rah ! I've been discovered by the webworld , o...
18 comments
Read more