Pepperoni Rolls Are a Classic Dish in the Rust Belt and Appalachia

When I was growing up in western Pennsylvania, pepperoni-stuffed bread rolls sustained many families on the cheap. In my hometown of New Castle — dubbed Tin Town because of its once prosperous tin industry — you could find roni rolls (best said with the most absurd Pittsburgh accent you can conjure) at bakeries, food marts, gas stations, and school cafeterias. I distinctly remember the town’s construction workers, farmers, and scrap resellers on their lunch breaks coming into the Tic Toc Food Mart, where my mom worked, to buy sleeves of lottery tickets, cigarettes, and roni rolls.

Like meatloaf, that other working-class staple, the pepperoni roll is a straight shooter. It’s exactly what it says. But something transcendent happens when slices of deli pepperoni are baked into a soft Italian loaf: The meat’s salt and fat seep into the bread, staining it a wonderful greasy orange, a process that’s paramount to a good pepperoni roll. Sometimes rolls contain mozzarella, which not only adds creaminess, but might escape through crevices in the bread and singe into crispy, frayed edges, like the kind that form around a broiled chicken parm. The platonic ideal roll is easily torn with your hands, never so dense that it becomes chewy, and the gooey treat is served chambré, at room temperature, like a glass of fine red wine.

Danny Palumbo

Even if you’ve never had a roni roll, there’s something inherently nostalgic and innocent about it. Hot Pockets and Totino’s Pizza Rolls both serve as crude cultural approximations, but neither do justice to the beauty of a traditional pepperoni roll straight out of Appalachia.

Like many other culinary inventions, pepperoni rolls are surrounded by dubious lore. People tend to point its origins toward Giuseppe Argiro, a Sicilian immigrant who worked in West Virginia coal mines before opening the Country Club Bakery in Fairmont in 1927. There, he may have served the first roni roll after seeing friends from the mine eating sticks of salami in one hand and hunks of bread in the other. There’s no possible way to substantiate this eureka moment, but in the minds of some West Virginians, Argiro is a Johnny Appleseed–like figure, spreading the good word of pepperoni-stuffed bread all throughout Appalachia.

Others look past the individual man to coal mining culture more broadly, especially the wives of miners, who supplied their husbands with portable, filling, shelf-stable lunches.

Portable meat pies are ubiquitous throughout mining cultures: There’s the pasty, a crimped, stuffed meat pie favored by Cornish miners in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. In Northeast Pennsylvania, coal crackers prefer piggies, stuffed cabbage rolls descended from Polish golabki. Taken loosely, enchiladas mineras in Guanajuato, Mexico, could be counted in this group; the dish takes its name from the silver miners, whose wives would supposedly deliver the — admittedly less portable — lunch staple, which remains a popular street food.

The pupusa, the runza, the calzone, the samosa — there’s something inescapable about the instinct to stuff delicious things in carbs for the sake of convenience, affordability, and portability. But to do so with deli pepperoni is a particular stroke of genius, a paintbrush that’s colored large swaths of Appalachia with a beautiful orange.

The pepperoni roll is a triumph of the bakeries that make them and the communities in which they thrive. Here’s where to get seven great examples:

Guiseppe Argiro’s legacy lives on at Country Club, which claims to be the first bakery to sell pepperoni rolls. The roll here is basic and beautiful: Soft, Italian bread is stuffed with spicy sticks of pepperoni, and the fat seeps wonderfully into the bread. The rolls are served warm and tightly wound in plastic bags.

Rolling Pepperoni

Rolling Pepperoni is the brainchild of Katt Schuler, a West Virginia native who wanted to dispel preconceived notions about Appalachia’s food culture and inhabitants. Schuler’s modern roni rolls push the dish forward while paying homage to traditions. The current menu includes a vegan roll featuring banana peppers and marinated artichoke hearts, alongside a take that combines pepperoni with dill pickles, Jarlsberg cheese, and chopped red onion.

These pepperoni rolls come recommended from Hal B. Klein, the food critic at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The Italian bread at Tomaro’s is particularly good when it comes right out of the oven. Get there early to get a pepperoni roll for breakfast.

Danny Palumbo

One of my favorite pepperoni rolls can be found in the Mahoning Valley. Chef Mike Landgraff bakes some of the best artisanal bread in the area, which is clear in the large, cushy, crusty rolls that house a top-quality, thick pepperoni, heavy on the pepper. The exteriors of the rolls are scored to strike a wonderful balance of textures.

Pepperoni rolls have proven popular outside Appalachia, including in Detroit, where you’ll find them all over. Head to Southwest Detroit, home to the city’s biggest Latinx population, to find one at Mexicantown Bakery. The business, a go-to spot for great conchas, cakes, and Mexican pastries, also serves a pepperoni-stuffed bolillo roll, a relatively rare variation on the bolillos you might see stuffed with cheese and jalapeños at other panaderías.

Danny Palumbo

Apple Castle in New Castle, Pennsylvania

I’m showing a bit of hometown love here, but the Apple Castle orchard and market is a treasure trove and well worth a detour if you find yourself in western Pennsylvania or eastern Ohio. Though varieties of apples are the specialty, the business also does a mighty fine pepperoni roll, stuffed with hot banana peppers and mozzarella cheese. The plush, greasy, spicy, rolls run on the smaller side, so pick up a few. They sell out.

Danny Palumbo is a writer and cook living in Detroit, Michigan.