By Mike Templeton
The Urban Appalachian Community Coalition continues to explore Appalachian foodways as a central site for the exploration of how Appalachian culture is preserved and handed down through generations. From soup beans to wild foraged dandelion greens, we have plenty of culinary curiosities to explore from the region’s various parts. Of the curiosities to remain tried and true and positively immune to change is the West Virginia pepperoni roll, which people in West Virginia hold up as a symbol of local pride in the way Cincinnatians hold up chili. We were reminded of this recently when Northern Row Brewery & Distillery invited us to their Kolsch Night for a celebration of Appalachian life and culture in the Queen City, and one of their staff, Josh Lively, made sure to include it on the menu.
The West Virginia pepperoni roll is exactly what it sounds like: a bread roll stuffed with pepperoni, mozzarella or provolone cheese, and marinara sauce. This seemingly unlikely food stuff originated with the influx of Italian immigrants to West Virginia in the early part of the 20th Century. It is believed that the first pepperoni rolls were sold by Giuseppe “Joseph” Argiro at the Country Club Bakery in Fairmont, West Virginia. Argiro was a miner who had moved to West Virginia from Calabria in Italy. After opening a bakery, he remembered how his friends would take food down into the mines that often consisted of pepperoni or salami on a stick and a piece of bread. Argiro decided to combine the two things and the pepperoni roll was born. It is a simple, sustaining, and arguably satisfying lunch for people who worked extremely hard, and had little return on their labor. The miners loved it, and after word got out, everyone else loved it too.
That the pepperoni roll is tasty is important, but that alone would not have gotten it into the mythology of West Virginia and Appalachia. For that to happen, the pepperoni roll had to find a way to be woven into the fabric of Appalachian life and culture. The pepperoni roll was a stable and lasting food product. It did not require refrigeration even though it contained the basics of a sound and filling meal, similar to the cornbread or biscuit and sausage that also ended up in the lunchpails of miners. Like these, pepperoni rolls could be wrapped and taken into the mines, and they would last throughout the workday. In essence, the pepperoni roll worked like miners work, and that gained the profound devotion of the people of West Virginia. These were the food stuffs that sustained people in the mines, but they were also present when the people of West Virginia had to stand up to coal bosses in what became armed conflict like the Battle of Blair Mountain in which miners fought a battle with the United States military, local police, and mine bosses for basic rights and living wages. The pepperoni roll was a war food ration by default. Today, the United States Armed Forces includes pepperoni rolls in the standard MRE, or Meals-Ready-to-Eat for U.S. soldiers. The durable, nutritious, and delicious pepperoni roll is now part of the military. From rebel coal miners’ staple to standard issue meals for U.S. soldiers is an unlikely career for such a humble thing like the pepperoni roll.
The pepperoni roll is specific to West Virginia. Like Cincinnati chili, you do not find it easily beyond the state, but it is everywhere in West Virginia. Small restaurants, diners, and bakeries all feature pepperoni rolls. You will find them on the menu at University student centers everywhere since the cheap pepperoni roll fuels college students on a budget the same way it once fueled miners. It is this kind of generational continuity that has placed the pepperoni roll in the lofty position it now occupies. From the rough and treacherous life of early 20th century coal miners to modern college kids, the pepperoni roll feeds the people, and it has become the people’s food. You will not run out places to find pepperoni rolls in West Virginia, but some of the sources I consulted swear you find the best pepperoni rolls in cheap gas stations and convenience stores. The humble working class status of the pepperoni roll seems to tie it forever to an extremely humble place in the world, and I personally find that admirable.
The consensus on pepperoni rolls outside West Virginia is that the cutoff point is somewhere around Zanesville, Ohio. The chatter online actually suggests Speedway offers something that is darn close in their hot food case, which might actually make sense given the ubiquity of gas station pepperoni rolls in West Virginia. After doing some digging, I discovered that a company called Marty’s Bakery is currently in negotiations with Speedway to carry their pepperoni rolls all over Ohio. It is also appropriate that the place for fast, easy, and cheap food on the go provides the same kind of nutritional basics that fed coal miners all those years ago. Otherwise, if you must get uppity about this, Millstone Bakery in Butler, Kentucky is said to have a fine pepperoni roll. At seven bucks, that ain’t too bad. The bakery has a massive selection of fine baked goods, so it should be easy to get someone to go with you on a pepperoni roll run. You might also try the baked sliders stuffed with pepperoni at Blue Oven Bakery at Findlay Market. This is said to be a fairly authentic version of the pepperoni roll in our area. All this said, the people of West Virginia would have my head for making the claim that an authentic pepperoni roll can be found anywhere beyond the borders of West Virginia, so I’ll just leave this at that.
No matter where you find them, or what you may think of them, the West Virginia pepperoni roll has taken its place within the world of Appalachian foodways. Though it remains almost exclusively a West Virginia phenomenon, there is no way to deny the bona fides of the pepperoni roll for its place in Appalachian culture. With a humble and extremely practical beginning feeding coal miners at time when portable and stable foods for miners was a rarity, to its contemporary place feeding college kids, hungry travelers, and, well, the entire State of West Virginia, the pepperoni roll is as Appalachian as it gets. I cannot speak for all of the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition on this, but I will make it a point to hit a Speedway to see what I can find. I’ll come back with a report.
Cover image source: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PepperoniRolls.jpg
Michael Templeton is a writer, and independent scholar. He is the author of The Chief of Birds: A Memoir published with Erratum Press and Impossible to Believe, published by Iff Books. He is also the author of Collected Apoems, forthcoming from LJMcD Communications, The Ohiomachine, forthcoming from Dead Letter Office/Punctum Books, and Nod: On Digital Exile forthcoming with Erratum Press, the Academic Division. Check out his profile in UACC’s Cultural Directory. He has published numerous articles and essays on contemporary culture and works of creative non-fiction as well as experimental works and poetry. He lives in West Milton, Ohio with his wife who is an artist.