One of my greatest joys in finally succumbing to Facebook a little over a year ago might be considered a little cliche but nonetheless meaningful. I'm speaking of course about finding friends and acquaintances from years gone by, kindergarten, grade school and high school. In my case, coming from a very small town in the heart of West Virginia, that meant connecting with people who have known me mostly since kindergarten and/or before. While the conversations have ranged in topic from "Do you remember....?" to "I need a nail and a board! Thanks!" and sometimes "Marshall! No WVU! No Marshall!" there have been no conversations more engaging to me than the ones where food is the topic.
While this is not a surprise knowing me, it seems that others have the same experience. We call back yearnings for Tudor's Biscuits (and I'm sometimes teased unmercifully by a certain person every time he indulges in this local treat unavailable to those of us who no longer reside in West Virginia), we try to recall too many wasted (both literally and figuratively) hours at Hulios in Huntington, WV, a Marshall University institution now long gone. We discuss fried apples, creamed tomatoes, grits and other regional fare that unifies and comforts us. Folks who sometimes have few comments come out of the woodwork, long enough to stop work on that farm (wink) or give me a break from ribbing me about my liberal politics (you know who you are!) , we all wrap ourselves in the recollection of food we can't find in our new homes or just don't know how to make! No conversation has been more rousing or educational to me than the one we held about the enduring and popular pepperoni roll, I heave a sigh just writing out the name.
If you hail from West Virginia the pepperoni roll warrants no explanation and it is possibly unfathomable to you that anyone else would not know what it is. Dear ones, there are many folks who have not had the pleasure of what I consider to be our state food so for their sakes indulge me while I share with them our great secret. Perhaps some of this may even be new for you as it was for me when I first learned it.
A pepperoni roll is cunning in its simplicity, severely lacking in any nutritional value, comforting in every way possible and easily found in every convenience store from backroad to 7-11 in the state of West Virginia. Simply put, a pepperoni roll is pepperoni baked into the softest white bread yeast roll you can find. Those are the basics. Beyond that, there is not a lot of agreement about what constitutes a proper pepperoni roll. For myself, I must admit I'm a purist. Ideally it would be stick pepperoni, although I've had decent ones with slices too. However, I think there's something more sublime about those last few bites of a roll that has the stick. All the yummy oil from the pepperoni seems more concentrated and more infused in the the actual dough (a process that occurs during the cooking of the roll) with the stick. It is even better if coupled with a Mountain Dew (Jamie Oliver, wherever you are, cover your ears) But that's just me. Google the term "pepperoni roll West Virginia" and you will find what I found, within the state the variations on the roll are abundant varying in types of cheese, peppers, the brands of pepperoni and a few radicals who even top theirs with chili! I am such a purist in my own love of this native food that I won't even attempt to make them myself for fear that I will fail to properly recapture the memory.
Some people might wonder why I don't simply run down the street to my nearest Seattle 7-11 to purchase a pepperoni roll. The answer dear ones lies in a USDA ruling regarding the meat being unseen yet cooked in the roll, the ruling sought to reclassify the bakeries that made the rolls subjecting them to stricter standards. Once again the simple roll turns out to be a bit of a mystery as it is difficult to pinpoint the exact reason why, but it appears that while the ruling stuck in other states, West Virginia was saved by an intervening Senator Jay Rockefeller who pointed out the economic hardship that the bakeries would endure if they had to conform to the rulings.
This ordinary pocket sandwich is not only a culinary treat, its cultural and historical origins are closely tied to a recent tragic event in our beloved state of West Virginia and that is what prompted me to write about it today. Like most good, simple fare that holds us in such memory and desire or that calls us back daily to the convenience store, for you lucky ones, the history of our famed pepperoni roll is one of practical and ethnic origin.
There is of course disagreement about the exact person to make the roll famous or to whom it should be attributed. But it seems that even the New York Times can pinpoint the roots of this unique food to the legacy of coal mining and the influx of Italian immigrants who came to West Virginia to work the mines. It seems these folk were in need of a food that was easy to carry, substantial, and could be held in one hand and thus the heavenly roll became a West Virginia icon.
Outside of West Virginia the culture of the mining industry is not well-known or understood. Our history lessons fail to underscore the experience of the land and the people who worked it and work it still. Elsewhere, it is unfortunate that two-weeks after 29 men were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine, many people across the United States have already forgotten. In this age of technological advances it should stay with us a little longer that such an accident could occur. In a country where health care is at the forefront of political and social debate we should be appalled to know that the deadly disease which has taken the lives of miners for years, Black Lung, is once again on the rise after a significant decrease.
As the days after the explosion wore on, I struggled with what part I could play in raising the consciousness of the people around me. This blog entry is my humble offering. If I were in West Virginia, I would go to my local convenience store and ask them to take one of those ribbons so many West Virginians on Facebook are using to memorialize the fallen miners and hang it next to the place where they sell those simple rolls whose legacy is tied to that of the miners whose great-grandfathers may have carried the same rolls to work as they too worked the mines. Maybe since I can't do that, reading this blog might inspire you to do it, or to send me the address of your local store so I can send them a letter and ask them if they would. Better yet, maybe someone somewhere has already started doing this very thing.
I hope you'll join me in this invitation to remind people that we are a state with a history of saying "no" to social injustice. We are the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state. We are home to Harpers Ferry, the historic site of abolitionist John Brown's raid. Let's remind people of all that is "almost heaven" in West Virginia. In honor and memory of the 29 miners who lost their lives, let's all work together so that it is not so easy for the rest of the country to forget. I look forward to hearing from you about what that might look like....More will be revealed...
While this is not a surprise knowing me, it seems that others have the same experience. We call back yearnings for Tudor's Biscuits (and I'm sometimes teased unmercifully by a certain person every time he indulges in this local treat unavailable to those of us who no longer reside in West Virginia), we try to recall too many wasted (both literally and figuratively) hours at Hulios in Huntington, WV, a Marshall University institution now long gone. We discuss fried apples, creamed tomatoes, grits and other regional fare that unifies and comforts us. Folks who sometimes have few comments come out of the woodwork, long enough to stop work on that farm (wink) or give me a break from ribbing me about my liberal politics (you know who you are!) , we all wrap ourselves in the recollection of food we can't find in our new homes or just don't know how to make! No conversation has been more rousing or educational to me than the one we held about the enduring and popular pepperoni roll, I heave a sigh just writing out the name.
If you hail from West Virginia the pepperoni roll warrants no explanation and it is possibly unfathomable to you that anyone else would not know what it is. Dear ones, there are many folks who have not had the pleasure of what I consider to be our state food so for their sakes indulge me while I share with them our great secret. Perhaps some of this may even be new for you as it was for me when I first learned it.
A pepperoni roll is cunning in its simplicity, severely lacking in any nutritional value, comforting in every way possible and easily found in every convenience store from backroad to 7-11 in the state of West Virginia. Simply put, a pepperoni roll is pepperoni baked into the softest white bread yeast roll you can find. Those are the basics. Beyond that, there is not a lot of agreement about what constitutes a proper pepperoni roll. For myself, I must admit I'm a purist. Ideally it would be stick pepperoni, although I've had decent ones with slices too. However, I think there's something more sublime about those last few bites of a roll that has the stick. All the yummy oil from the pepperoni seems more concentrated and more infused in the the actual dough (a process that occurs during the cooking of the roll) with the stick. It is even better if coupled with a Mountain Dew (Jamie Oliver, wherever you are, cover your ears) But that's just me. Google the term "pepperoni roll West Virginia" and you will find what I found, within the state the variations on the roll are abundant varying in types of cheese, peppers, the brands of pepperoni and a few radicals who even top theirs with chili! I am such a purist in my own love of this native food that I won't even attempt to make them myself for fear that I will fail to properly recapture the memory.
Some people might wonder why I don't simply run down the street to my nearest Seattle 7-11 to purchase a pepperoni roll. The answer dear ones lies in a USDA ruling regarding the meat being unseen yet cooked in the roll, the ruling sought to reclassify the bakeries that made the rolls subjecting them to stricter standards. Once again the simple roll turns out to be a bit of a mystery as it is difficult to pinpoint the exact reason why, but it appears that while the ruling stuck in other states, West Virginia was saved by an intervening Senator Jay Rockefeller who pointed out the economic hardship that the bakeries would endure if they had to conform to the rulings.
This ordinary pocket sandwich is not only a culinary treat, its cultural and historical origins are closely tied to a recent tragic event in our beloved state of West Virginia and that is what prompted me to write about it today. Like most good, simple fare that holds us in such memory and desire or that calls us back daily to the convenience store, for you lucky ones, the history of our famed pepperoni roll is one of practical and ethnic origin.
There is of course disagreement about the exact person to make the roll famous or to whom it should be attributed. But it seems that even the New York Times can pinpoint the roots of this unique food to the legacy of coal mining and the influx of Italian immigrants who came to West Virginia to work the mines. It seems these folk were in need of a food that was easy to carry, substantial, and could be held in one hand and thus the heavenly roll became a West Virginia icon.
Outside of West Virginia the culture of the mining industry is not well-known or understood. Our history lessons fail to underscore the experience of the land and the people who worked it and work it still. Elsewhere, it is unfortunate that two-weeks after 29 men were killed in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine, many people across the United States have already forgotten. In this age of technological advances it should stay with us a little longer that such an accident could occur. In a country where health care is at the forefront of political and social debate we should be appalled to know that the deadly disease which has taken the lives of miners for years, Black Lung, is once again on the rise after a significant decrease.
As the days after the explosion wore on, I struggled with what part I could play in raising the consciousness of the people around me. This blog entry is my humble offering. If I were in West Virginia, I would go to my local convenience store and ask them to take one of those ribbons so many West Virginians on Facebook are using to memorialize the fallen miners and hang it next to the place where they sell those simple rolls whose legacy is tied to that of the miners whose great-grandfathers may have carried the same rolls to work as they too worked the mines. Maybe since I can't do that, reading this blog might inspire you to do it, or to send me the address of your local store so I can send them a letter and ask them if they would. Better yet, maybe someone somewhere has already started doing this very thing.
I hope you'll join me in this invitation to remind people that we are a state with a history of saying "no" to social injustice. We are the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state. We are home to Harpers Ferry, the historic site of abolitionist John Brown's raid. Let's remind people of all that is "almost heaven" in West Virginia. In honor and memory of the 29 miners who lost their lives, let's all work together so that it is not so easy for the rest of the country to forget. I look forward to hearing from you about what that might look like....More will be revealed...
I must make pepperoni rolls now (as long as Jamie Oliver isn't watching)! You know, my husband says cooking is entirely about culture and love. I think that is exactly what you are talking about here. And there is a lot of stories about food, culture, and love from WV. My Grandmother died three weeks ago and I am not sure where my family will be without her "leather britches" and her chicken and dumplings. Life will never be quite the same.
ReplyDeleteThose of us in northern WV would give Marion County the credit for the pepperoni roll beginnings. And as for stick vs. slices...come to any Mountaineer tailgate of mine, and I'll convert you to the slices!
ReplyDeleteI remember the pepperoni roll well. I still make them every now and then and get them pretty close to what they tasted like as a kid. I think I will make some this week. I haven't had any for quite a spell. I use slices with a pepper cheese that gives it a bite. It's so refreshing.
ReplyDeleteas the miners go, my thoughts and prayers are with the families of the 29 that lost their lives. My grandfather was a coal miner in West Virginia and got black lung from it. The stories he used to tell would make the hair on the back of your neck raise. May we all remember the miners who lost their lives supporting their families in horrible working conditions.
ReplyDeleteslices, with cheddar cheese and a green olive!!!!
ReplyDeleteDianna, I never heard that before! That's making my mouth water! I need a fix!
ReplyDelete