Classic Hifi Care

Nowadays, pickle loaf is as obsolete as dusters and Model T Fords. You can't find it anywhere out here. Walmart, Basha's, none of the big grocers carry it. My wife knows the deli manager at our local Fry's (Kroger), and she mentioned that her husband would be mighty proud to have a pound of good pickle loaf. So, today, she came back from grocery shopping, proud as a peacock. And she brought home a pound of pickle loaf, sliced nice and thick. Two hunks of that, along with a slice of colby jack cheese and a generous layer of mayonaise will make a working man's sandwich for lunch fit for the gods. Genuine Boars Head pickle loaf, $7.59 per pound......

Grandma would send me up the Strawtown Pike on my bicycle to Mr. Durant's country store, eight miles to the north in Patricksburg. I would buy a quarter's worth of EMGE pickle loaf and a half-pound of County Line (Kraft colby) cheese. This would last grandpa and me all week, packing our buckets for lunch. You could get EMGE pickle loaf for 39 cents a pound, Eckrich for 45 cents a pound, and some stores had Stark & Wetzel pickle loaf for 29 cents a pound. Grandma would send an extra nickel so I could get a 5 cent "belly washer" ("sody" water, a six and a half ounce Coke) for my ride home. And be sure to bring her back the change from the dollar. Money doesn't grow on trees, you know......

I remember that and sandwich spread that was like ground SPAM. They still carry pickle loaf at my store. And head cheese during the holidays.

Personally, I love a liverwurst on rye with mustard and raw onion.

Wow, all of that brings back memories. Our local grocery has a concoction of bologna with other stuff that you spread. It's outstanding, I eat it with crackers.

Bill

Wow, all of that brings back memories. Our local grocery has a concoction of bologna with other stuff that you spread. It's outstanding, I eat it with crackers.

Bill

The pickle loaf I remember had olives and small bits of pickle, We would also get ring bologna and braunschwieger. The bologna and braunschweiger would be taken with crackers. That and cracklings was the snack food in our house.

19&41 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 13, 2023 11:44 pm The pickle loaf I remember had olives and small bits of pickle,

That's what I remember too. Most of those mystery-meat concoctions are banned from my regular diet because I'm an old guy with heart disease. I did eat pizza last weekend.... a mini-reunion, and my sister brought a good gooey local pizza, Oh my. All those things--Mexican, pizza, pickle loaf--are mostly fantasies now.

Chris Campbell

I was sure happy when the wife came home after having found pickle loaf. The doc told me the other day that I am a 20-year cancer survivor, so why would he lecture me on how I ate? I still like bacon and eggs, hot dogs, all the stuff they say will kill you. So be it. I don't want to survive just to draw breath. I intend to enjoy my life.

I quit trucking, quit drinking, quit smoking, quit chasing wild women. I don't intend to be perfect, I enjoy my vices....

Pickle loaf. Such a vice.

I remember Uncle Fort stopping at Mr. Durant's store, buying a couple slices of bread (he would cut off what you wanted and sell it by the slice) a couple slices of lunch meat, a couple slices of cheese. He would toss the bag into the glove box of his old International truck with the Buick Straight 8 in it. That lunch meat would bounce around in that old hot truck all morning. When he got to the stock yards, he would open the bag and make his sandwich. The meat and cheese were warm enough they were limp. Best pickle loaf sandwich in creation right there. We hadn't heard of food-borne illnesses back then.

I just came across this on YouTube. Modern Marvels: Cold Cuts. Mighty interesting. If you want to see what a meat processing plant really looks like on the inside, this will show you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTCwYu_1tbg