Mmmmmmmmm.
Moist but firm. But not too tasty.
Let’s try this one.
Mmmmmm.
Moist, firm, a bit more tasty.
How about his one?
Yuck. Greasy and tastes like bad memories of warm balogna sandwiches consumed in a pre-teenage world when one had no say over the lunches Mom served.
Dozens of pig industry people and at least one newspaper reporter experienced feelings like these during a product taste test at the Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium late last month.
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People willing to help out the research efforts of the Saskatchewan Food Product Innovation Program, and those wanting a free meat snack, took the balogna test, which arrived on a styrofoam plate felt-penned into three numbered segments, each containing one half slice of faded pink balogna.
Each participant went into in a booth and tested each example of almost identical meat products. Then they rated them.
No one this reporter saw commented on the uncanny similarity of this test to voting in a federal election.
To make sure the test reached scientific, commercial and gourmet standards, participants were asked to swish their palates between samples. The slices were judged for taste, texture and moistness. No one was asked whether they liked balogna.
Officials in food innovation program are hoping to put more than Saskatchewan pigs in balogna. There’s also room for barley, they say.
“Saskatchewan grows so many ingredients, why don’t we try to use them in meat processing?” program official Dan Prefontaine asked. The program tries to find new uses for Saskatchewan farm products, and comes up with technology that allows Saskatchewan products to be used in food processing.
The balogna used this day was made at a University of Saskatchewan food laboratory using various ingredients and different levels of ingredients.
Some was the old standby balogna, the stuff that’s slapped between slices of bread across North America.
But other slices were from balogna rolls that used barley flour and barley flakes.
Apparently, one of the great challenges of balogna making is combining ingredients so the meat does not quickly go rancid, contains moisture without leaking it all over the package, and has a pleasing-to-the-tongue texture.
Barley holds moisture, slows the rate of spoiling and tastes good.
Prefontaine could not say which numbered slice contained which products. That information is a tightly guarded secret, unknown even to those conducting the test.
After the test the taste ratings were sent back to the university to be crunched and analyzed.
From that it will determined whether Saskatchewan barley has a future in balogna.
