GILROY
– Gene Sakahara and Sam Bozzo have created a fried bologna
sandwich that might give David Letterman’s mom some stiff
competition.
GILROY – Gene Sakahara and Sam Bozzo have created a fried bologna sandwich that might give David Letterman’s mom some stiff competition.
The new food called the Festival Fried Garlic Bologna Sandwich will debut near the cook-off stage at this year’s Garlic Festival.
“We even went as far as to challenge Dave Letterman’s mother,” said Bozzo, half of the popular cooking team, SakaBozzo. “We wanted to see whose sandwich is better.”
But SakaBozzo didn’t receive a response from the Letterman Show. The TV comedian grew up eating the popular East Coast sandwich, and his mother, Dorothy, cooked the fried bologna sandwich on his talk show.
Likewise, Sakahara said he ate bologna as a kid and created his own recipe using the common kitchen staple at age 12 or 13 to avoid growing tired of it.
“This is a variation of a dish when I was a child,” Sakahara said. “I grew up in Gilroy the son of a poor farmer. You have to fix bologna in a variety of ways, because it’s just bologna.”
As a kid, Sakahara prepared his sandwich with toasted bread, ketchup, fried bologna, red onion, tomato and mayo.
“I remember this as a kid to have bologna sandwiches, but Gene took it to another layer,” Bozzo said. “It was just amazing.”
For a festival twist, the sandwich will be served on a Kaiser roll and with garlic bologna. Several companies make garlic bologna but use granulated garlic. SakaBozzo found a company in San Francisco, Evergood Sausage Company, that agreed to prepare the bologna specially for the Garlic Festival.
“This is not your mother’s grocery-store bologna,” Bozzo said. “It’s a thick slice of specially prepared Evergood Sausage Company meat enhanced with bits of Christopher Ranch garlic.”
The Festival Fried Garlic Bologna Sandwich will be sold near the cook-off stage in sample sizes for $2 each. The two think the new sandwich will go well with Gordon Biersch garlic fries.
They hope the dish will take off and they will sell 3,000 of the small sandwiches at the festival.
“It’s time for the West Coast to start making a name for itself,” Sakahara said.
The cooking duo also tried to lure Al Roker, from the Food Network’s “Roker on the Road,” and chefs from a tavern in Waldo, Ohio, to rival their version of the fried bologna sandwich but without success.
Despite the lack of takers, SakaBozzo will go ahead and demonstrate how to prepare the simple sandwich on the cook-off stage on July 25 so festivalgoers can make it in their homes.
Last year, the cooking team debuted Garlic Ginger Stir-Fried Chicken, which sold more than 4,000 orders and will return to this year’s festival menu. Sakahara hopes the fried bologna sandwich will meet with similar success.
“I’m hoping that people will like it and ask for it again,” he said. “You can do a whole lot of things with garlic.”
