My wife’s parents called it motor trailer. My parents called it dead secretary (Perry Mason was the most watched show in those days). I didn’t care what they called it. Mortadella was my favorite sandwich meat.
I started to really love it long ago and far away in the blue-collar town known as Hamilton, Ontario, Canada when I was a poor struggling student (and already a parent). That required purchasing food that was extremely cost-effective (though we never could have imagined that term then and used the simple word cheap). My favorite cheap luncheon meat was mortadella. It was 39 cents a pound and, when on special, three pounds for a dollar. There were others I could buy for the same price: plain bologna (or baloney, as we called it), pickle and pimento loaf, macaroni and cheese loaf, but mortadella had a certain spicing that I was hooked on.
I used to purchase my mortadella in one of those mini ethnic supermarkets. It had a 20 foot wide meat counter and a full time butcher. When I’d order my three pounds, the butcher, who looked a lot like the guy on the Chef Boyardee can, and I’m sure had half a tube of Brylcreem on his hair and a couple more dabs at the end of his moustache to twirl it up, would do one of those throaty wohoho laughs, a la Maurice Chevalier, tighten his hand into a fist, and raise his arm into an upright position from the elbow. I thought it had to do with the size of the sausage I was purchasing; I later discovered his mischievous antics related to something slightly different. But I was definitely in the right ballpark.
You see, what I didn’t know then but I sure do now is that mortadella contained something that probably has the greatest reputation as a cure for what, in medieval times, was referred to as “sluggish loving”. Myrtle is often the active ingredient that is associated with that “Love Potion Number Nine” that made it into the punch at frat parties (that I wasn’t invited to) and high school dances (that I never attended). Myrtle may even have similar properties to the synthetic ingredients found in MDMA or what is now more popularly known as ecstasy. Wow! Who would have thought.
Mortadella starts as finely ground up pork (its name comes from the mortar and pestel that turned the pork into paste) from some of those less-in-demand portions of the animal (sorry for the delicate way of saying it but if I told you more, you might never eat it). Mixed with that are those white bits you see (a minimum 15%), actually lardons or chunks of fat from the throat (hope you’re still reading), those infamous myrtle berries, coriander, anise, white pepper, wine, peppercorns (the black bits you see) and pistachios (the green bits you see).
And this finally brings me to why I would dedicate a blog that’s about food in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, to an Italian delicacy. You see, in Toronto, where I spend about half of my life, you can no longer buy real mortadella. Due to the possibility of allergic reactions to the pistachios, true versions of my favorite cheap sausage have gone off the market. Gone from me for six months of every year.
But not in Mexico. In San Miguel, I can go to Supermercado La Comer or City Market and buy an entire log. Or have it sliced in front of me while I salivate. Viva Mexico!
Mortadella is the pride of the city of Bologna which I consider the city that’s the heart and soul of Italian cuisine. It has long been the distant second cousin to salami. Please make it the first cousin it deserves to be. If not for the pistachios, maybe the myrtle berries.
“I took my troubles down to Madame Rue. You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth…”
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