Yale, the Bologna Capital

Yale is a small farm town of under two thousand people, but it carries a big title: it’s known, unofficially, as the Bologna Capital of the World. The claim comes honestly. A local meat company, C. Roy, has been smoking its famous Yale Bologna right downtown since 1924, and the stuff has been a regional favorite ever since.

Every July, on the last full weekend of the month, the whole town leans into it for the Yale Bologna Festival. The streets close down, the population swells from a couple thousand to more than twenty thousand, and the weekend fills up with a parade, a car show, live music, a street dance, and gloriously silly traditions like the outhouse races and the crowning of a King and Queen of Bologna. At the heart of it all is the big tent serving up the thing everybody came for: a hot fried bologna sandwich. You can find this year’s dates at yalebolognafestival.org.