The pepperoni roll is an

Italian-American Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, w ...

stuffed

bread roll Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made foo ...

. Originally conceived of as a coal miner's lunch, it is popular in

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

and some nearby regions of the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...

such as Eastern Kentucky,

Western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania is a region in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, covering the western third of the state. Pittsburgh is the region's principal city, with a metropolitan area population of about 2.4 million people, and serves as its economic ...

Western Maryland upright=1.2, An enlargeable map of Maryland's 23 counties and one independent city Western Maryland, also known as the Maryland Panhandle, is the portion of the U.S. state of Maryland that typically consists of Washington, Allegany, and Garret ...

, and

Appalachian Ohio Appalachian Ohio is a bioregion and political unit in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, characterized by the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and the Appalachian Plateau. The Appalachian Regional Commission defines t ...

. In West Virginia it is nearly ubiquitous, particularly in

convenience store A convenience store, convenience shop, corner store or corner shop is a small retail business that stocks a range of everyday items such as coffee, groceries, snack foods, confectionery, soft drinks, ice creams, tobacco products, lottery ticket ...

s, and is arguably the food most closely associated with the state. Pepperoni rolls are also found in Southeast Michigan where they were popular among auto workers in the factories. The classic pepperoni roll consists of a fairly soft

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

yeast Yeasts are eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms classified as members of the fungus kingdom. The first yeast originated hundreds of millions of years ago, and at least 1,500 species are currently recognized. They are estimated to constitut ...

-leavened bread roll with

pepperoni Pepperoni is an American variety of spicy salami made from cured pork and beef seasoned with paprika or other chili pepper. Prior to cooking, pepperoni is characteristically soft, slightly smoky, and bright red. Thinly sliced pepperoni is one ...

baked in the middle. During baking, the

fat In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers spec ...

s in the pepperoni (which are hard at

room temperature Colloquially, "room temperature" is a range of air temperatures that most people prefer for indoor settings. It feels comfortable to a person when they are wearing typical indoor clothing. Human comfort can extend beyond this range depending on ...

) melt, resulting in a spicy oil suffusing into the bread. Pepperoni rolls are typically eaten for lunch or breakfast, either unheated or slightly warmed.

Origins

The pepperoni roll was first sold by Giuseppe "Joseph" Argiro at the

Country Club Bakery Country Club Bakery is a bakery located in Fairmont, West Virginia, which is where the pepperoni roll originated. The bakery is currently located on Country Club Road. The pepperoni roll is a snack popular in West Virginia and some nearby regions ...

Fairmont, West Virginia Fairmont is a city in and county seat of Marion County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 18,313 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Fairmont Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Marion County, a ...

, in 1927. The rolls originated as a lunch option for the

coal mine Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

rs of north-central West Virginia in the first half of the 20th century. Pepperoni rolls do not need to be refrigerated for storage and could readily be packed for lunch by miners. Pepperoni and other

Italian food Italian cuisine (, ) is a Mediterranean cuisine David 1988, Introduction, pp.101–103 consisting of the ingredients, recipes and cooking techniques developed across the Italian Peninsula and later spread around the world together with wave ...

s became popular in north-central West Virginia in the early 20th century, when the booming mines and

railroads Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

attracted many

immigrants Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

from

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. The pepperoni roll bears a resemblance to the

pasty A pasty () is a British baked pastry, a traditional variety of which is particularly associated with Cornwall, South West England, but has spread all over the British Isles. It is made by placing an uncooked filling, typically meat and vegetab ...

and

sausage roll A sausage roll is a savoury pastry snack, popular in current and former Commonwealth nations, consisting of sausage meat wrapped in puffed pastry. Sausage rolls are sold at retail outlets and are also available from bakeries as a take-away food. ...

, which originated in the mining communities of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

, as well as the

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

calzone A calzone (, , ; "stocking" or "trouser") is an Italian oven-baked folded pizza, often described as a turnover, made with leavened dough. It originated in Naples in the 18th century. A typical calzone is made from salted bread dough, baked in ...

Variations

Variations on the original pepperoni roll may contain different types of

cheese Cheese is a dairy product produced in wide ranges of flavors, textures, and forms by coagulation of the milk protein casein. It comprises proteins and fat from milk, usually the milk of cows, buffalo, goats, or sheep. During production, ...

pepper Pepper or peppers may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant ** Black pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ** Bell pepper ** Chili ...

s, or other ingredients. The pepperoni within can take several forms, including a single stick, several folded slices, or shredded or

ground meat Ground meat, called mince or minced meat outside North America, is meat finely chopped by a meat grinder or a chopping knife. A common type of ground meat is ground beef, but many other types of meats are prepared in a similar fashion, includi ...

Legal challenges

In 1987, a bakery shipped pepperoni rolls from West Virginia to Maryland.Food Safety Enforcers Keeping Hands Off the Pepperoni Rolls
. ''The Washington Post''. The Shreveport Journal (Shreveport, Louisiana). March 27, 1987. p. 8C. While the pepperoni had been inspected as an ingredient before it was baked into the rolls, the Food Inspection and Safety Service decided that the final product needed to be inspected as well because it was sold outside the bakery, similar to how a bakery making pepperoni pizzas would require inspection of the final product after the pizza was made. The

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, ...

proposed reclassifying bakeries that manufactured the rolls as meat processing plants, thus subjecting them to daily inspections for hygiene. The bakery owners said that meeting the new regulations would increase costs so much that producing pepperoni rolls would no longer be profitable to them. The United States Department of Agriculture suggested that the bakeries cut them in half and rename them pepperoni sandwiches, because cut sandwiches are not subject to the additional hygiene regulations, but the bakeries refused, saying customers would not buy pepperoni rolls cut in half.

Jay Rockefeller John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV (born June 18, 1937) is a retired American politician who served as a United States senator from West Virginia (1985–2015). He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as governor of West Virg ...

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

for West Virginia, intervened and met with

Secretary of Agriculture The United States secretary of agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other governments. The department includes several organi ...

Richard Lyng. After the meeting, Secretary Lyng issued a special exemption to bakeries producing pepperoni rolls.

As military rations

In the early 2000s, the

U.S. military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

began including a version of the pepperoni roll in one of the MREs ( Meals, Ready-to-Eat) provided to troops. In the late 2000s, the U.S. Army changed the pepperoni roll to its

First Strike Ration The First Strike Ration (FSR) is a compact, eat-on-the move ration concept from the United States Army, designed to be consumed during the first 72 hours of conflict, created by the United States Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachuse ...

. These rations are designed for light infantry, airborne, and special forces during a typical 72-hour patrol. The pepperoni roll's compact size and comparatively high nutritional return make it an ideal ration for these patrols. These rations were extensively employed during

Operation Enduring Freedom Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) was the official name used synonymously by the U.S. government for both the War in Afghanistan (2001–2014) and the larger-scale Global War on Terrorism. On 7 October 2001, in response to the September 11 at ...

. The military's rolls are made by a

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

company.

References

External links