Well, Mexican bologna is in the news yet again.
The first notable item occurred when President Biden visited El Paso last month to see what was happening with the large influx of migrants from Mexico, Central and South America. He spent a lot of time with U.S. Border Patrol Agents, and one of the things he was shown was the effectiveness of the service’s contraband sniffing dogs.
The task they gave the dog was pretty lame, I thought. The pooch sniffed out a six-pound roll of Mexican bologna stashed in the trunk of a car. I mean really, our dog Chester can sniff out a cheese snack from 100 yards away. I think sniffing out six pounds of especially pungent processed meat is something most any dog could do without special training.
Anway, the story about Biden’s Mexican bologna encounter was part of a larger article on how USDA officials continue to be concerned about the large amount of that meaty concoction that crosses the border at El Paso and then makes its way up through New Mexico. An article in the El Paso Times said that although other ports of entry from Mexico to the United State seize shipments of bologna, the Border Patrol’s “El Paso field office is the only one that consistently reports large seizures of the lunch mean known in Spanish as salchichon.”
You may recall that this intrepid reporter was able to score Mexican bologna in Las Cruces last year and perform a taste test without getting busted by either Border Patrol or U.S. Customs agents.
How the bologna I bought made its way into Las Cruces was not revealed, but stories about the lengths to which smugglers try to conceal the meat are pretty entertaining. Large rolls have been stuffed inside spare tires, under car seats and intermingled with underwear in suitcases.
Well, the latest trick to bring in bologna was pretty ingenious. Smugglers were able to find a loophole that if Mexican bologna was in a sandwich, it could not be confiscated. Their response was to slice six-inch thick slabs of the meat and stuff it between two pieces of bread and call it a sandwich.
I think I’ll recommend that Subway add the six-inch balogna stack to its menu.
aero-cordero.com 