>>We were buying baloney in the early years here, and after a while decided that it simply doesn't sit well with our habits. If we don't eat the whole pound at once (which we never do), nobody will touch the rest. So we now don't.
>
>Don't buy a whole pound of it then, dumn cluck! :-)

That's how they're packed.

Now there's the deli section (where they probably keep the abbreviated delicatessen), where they'll slice it for you in any amount you want, but it just takes too long to wait, and the sliced stuff doesn't hold too well in the fridge (either gets too dry or develops the same sticky film all over). So we bought a slicer (and as a reference to your Popeye - it's nicknamed Hassan, from "Hassan chop!"), which wasn't easy to find. They had a choice of one in one shop :). Now we only have to give instructions to the clerk at the deli how to cut a stick of salami in half, when they don't really have a real butcher's knife. Or sometimes we just buy the whole stick, to cut the talk.