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.[1] The pepperoni roll is a snack popular in West Virginia and some nearby regions of the Appalachian Mountains.[2]
Because of the pepperoni's roll's origins in the town, Fairmont has dubbed itself the "pepperoni roll capital of the world".[3] In 2020, in honor of the store and snack's legacy, a marker was put up in Fairmont that states, “West Virginia delicacy created by Italian families in Fairmont to feed local coal miners. Variants now popular statewide.”[4]
See also: Pepperoni roll. The original location where the pepperoni roll was invented is on Robinson Street, Fairmont.[5] The store was opened up and the snack was invented by immigrant baker Giuseppe Argiro some time around the 1910s or 1930s.[6] [7] [8]
The rolls originated as a lunch option for West Virginia coal miners in the first half of the twentieth century. A large number of Italian immigrants moved to North Central West Virginia looking for work in coal mining jobs. The pepperoni roll was a convenient snack that didn't spoil for the workers to eat.
The pepperoni roll bears a resemblance to the pasty and sausage roll, which originated in the mining communities of Great Britain, as well as to the Italian calzone. These foods and the pepperoni shared a similar purpose; they allowed a miner on a break from a tiring and dirty job to eat a full meal with less problem.