Beautiful bologna: N.L. restaurant making artisanal version of beloved meat stick

ST. JOHN’S, N.L.

In the deli case at Chinched, a popular restaurant and charcuterie shop in downtown St. John’s, the house-made bologna sits on a shelf above the carefully cured salamis and sausages, larger in diameter and unmistakably pink.

“Make bologna beautiful again” is the restaurant’s unofficial slogan for the meat, which owner Michelle LeBlanc says is “one of our most popular items, hands down.”

Bologna is a high-fat slurry of pork or beef stuffed into a meat casing and cooked. LeBlanc said the Chinched slogan began as a wink to bologna’s wienerlike reputation — the less you know about what’s in it, the better.

“It’s our play on (our bologna) being a product that we can tell you every ingredient that’s in there,” she said. “There’s no and/ors, if you will. It’s straight up pork, pork fat and spices. No random bits.” Chinched also makes bologna with beef and, when it’s in season, moose.

Bologna may be an unlikely candidate for the artisanal treatment, but in Newfoundland and Labrador, “it’s in everyone’s refrigerator,” she said.

It’s sold in corner stores by weight, sliced on site from a pink tube with a knot at one end — usually the Maple Leaf Foods Big Stick product which, according to a spokeswoman for the company, comes in one — or two-kilogram logs. The company tracks sales by region not province, but the spokeswoman confirmed Atlantic Canada is by far the biggest buyer of the Big Stick.

There’s even a Maple Leaf Big Stick bologna character each year in the downtown St. John’s Christmas parade. Its costume used to be a soft pink tube with big eyes, a smile, and goofy oversized hands to wave at kids, but the whites of the eyes had yellowed over the years, giving the convivial meat man a jaundiced look. In recent years, the suit was upgraded to a neoprene-like material.

Ron Linegar, a cook at Caines Grocery and Deli on Duckworth Street, says for some people, the Big Stick mascot is more popular than Santa Claus.

Established in 1927, Caines is a mainstay in downtown St. John’s, and Linegar, 54, says they’ve been selling bologna for as long as he can remember. Its main room is a regular corner store, with racks of chips, coolers of pop and boxes of licorice by the cash register. In the backroom, there’s an eatery and deli, selling traditional Newfoundland meals and, of course, sliced bologna.