Pepperoni Nostalgia

I miss pepperoni rolls.

For those of you not from The Mountain State, the snack food that I speak of is very simply a homemade roll stuffed with pepperoni, and normally some type of cheese. For this, pepper-jack is my favorite. Sadly, I've never met anyone without West Virginia ties that has any inkling as to what I'm talking about.

I also miss ramps, morel mushrooms, and venison, but don't let me fool you. Growing up, I wasn't overly thrilled with any of these things other than going digging for the ramps because it gave me an excuse to wander through the woods; and I always liked morels because they're fantastic. If you haven't tried them, you need to. I hated other types of mushrooms as a kid, but I got pretty excited when dad would bring a bunch of these back after he came home from turkey hunting. They go on the under-rated list. More on that at a later date.

Anyway, back to the pepperoni rolls. Most of the pepperoni rolls I had when I was young were from a gas station. We would be driving to some destination, probably the home of a relative, and I would get cranky (as I tend to do when I'm hungry) and dad would show up with a pepperoni roll. To this day you would be hard-pressed to find anyone that loves gas station treats more than my father and I, but their pepperoni rolls weren't the best. They were normally stale and the pepperoni was never evenly distributed. They're best served hot and this was long before there was a Sheetz every hundred miles or so to provide the great selection that they do today. I also miss Sheetz. This post is quickly getting depressing. whew.

Over time, my mother, who was much less impressed with this local delicacy, decided that she would make them with her sourdough bread recipe. This bread recipe by itself is on my 'top 5 foods of all time' list, so when you add pepperoni and cheese, it's like winning the lotto. This is a particularly special event because the bread is so time and labor intensive that I would need two weeks off from work to undertake such a project. Ok, I'm being a little dramatic, but not as much as you might think. It's intense.

I tried to make them once on a whim before a football game. They were awful, and I don't throw that word around loosely. My now brother-in-law asked sincerely what had happened to them. This is not the same brother-in-law who moved to Atlanta and contacted the Sheetz people at 2 in the morning to let them know that he missed them and they should move south so that he could have that part of home back. It's comforting to know that I married into a similar type of crazy. Anyway, I have no idea what possessed me to introduce those pepperoni rolls to the general public. They should have been kept behind closed doors; actually, behind the closed lid of a garbage can.

In the last few weeks I've found myself thinking about them a lot. My good friend in NYC even took a crack at them and fed them to her construction crew on a preservation project. Afterward, we had a long conversation about her efforts. Multiple facebook friends have even posted about pepperoni rolls in general in the last few weeks. The whole thing is almost eerie. Let's face it though, I'm not craving stale gas station bread and greasy pepperoni. I just miss my parents, and my friends, my family and everything else about home and all the wonderful things there that made me who I am.

It might be time to try making these little jewels again. I'm still not brave enough for the sourdough, though.