Let's just hope no one decides to add cream cheese. Rolling two of Philadelphia's favorite foods in one handheld bundle, the Philly Pretzel Factory introduces the cheesesteak pretzel. As the name suggests, it's a soft pretzel stuffed with cheesesteak filling. All the flavor of a giant cheesesteak with none of the mess. Said one diner, "I'm not going to be wearing this all day."
Though the invention is novel, its inspiration can be found it some of the country's oldest sandwich precursors. Before sandwiches hit it big in the US, laborers carried early versions that were essentially warm meat filling encased in dough.
In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, miners lunched on Cornish pasties, which often had savory fillnig on one end and sweet dessert at the other. The similar bierock fed farm hands in Nebraska, while the pepperoni roll in West Virginia gained popularity with mine workers and is now sold in convenience stores.
So perhaps it was only a matter of time before someone figured out how to contain the mess of a cheesesteak in the form of these old-school convenience foods. Though I'll admit, the pretzel really takes it to the next level.
Before there were Subways, there were miners, who pioneered some of America's best handheld meals. Underground laborers in Michigan's Upper Peninsula dined on pasties when they couldn't come up for lunch, and in West Virginia, Italian immigrants ate a similar sandwich cousin called a pepperoni roll.
In a New York Times story this week, John T. Edge pays homage to the pepperoni roll, which originated in West Virginia coal-mining towns in the early 1900s. When immigrants from Calabria arrived to work the mines, they brought fresh-baked bread and salumi for lunch. Soon, local stores started selling their version of the rollups, stuffing sticks of pepperoni into warm rolls. Now, pepperoni rolls are a local culinary legend. Writes Edge:
At BFS convenience stores, where they’re sold alongside Hot Pockets and other nationally distributed grab-and-go foods, shift workers warm pepperoni rolls in microwave ovens and dip them in packets of marinara sauce. At the Ritzy Lunch, a venerable diner in Clarksburg, grill cooks dress split rolls with chili and cheese. Country club barkeepers sell pepperoni rolls as ballast to beer-drinking golfers.
Pepperoni isn't my top choice when it comes to pizza, but that doughy crust looks like it would be right up my alley. Are you familiar with the pepperoni roll?
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