Roadfood_ Revised Edition - Jane Stern [97]
As far as we can discern, there is but one single dish unique to the state, found mostly between Morgantown and Weston, but at its best in the old Italian-settled communities of Fairmont and Clarksburg. It is the pepperoni roll, a portable, self-contained meal similar to the Cornish pasty, but made of Italian-style dough wrapped and risen and baked around a fistful of pepperoni twigs scarcely bigger than matchsticks. Originally invented at the Country Club Bakery by Giuseppe Agrio in 1927, pepperoni rolls were a favorite food among miners, who could carry them underground without fear of spoilage and eat them with little mess.
Now pepperoni rolls are sold in every grocery store, convenience store, and gas station in the area, and not all of them are good to eat. But some of the best are still made by Country Club in a classic configuration. They are simple, small sandwiches, selling for fifty-nine cents apiece—a four-inch tube of warm, crusty dough with just enough pepperoni cushioned inside to add fetching zest to the bready wrap. It is not unusual for hungry locals to eat a half-dozen rolls as a snack.
Discount Center Cafeteria
US 250
304–775–7781
Burton, WV
BL | $
What do you need? A box of ready-to-make macaroni and cheese? A loaf of soft white bread? A genuine West Virginia pepperoni roll? A cast-iron skillet? Penny candy? A winter coat? A new carburetor? The Discount Center, by the side of Highway 250 in the tiny town of Burton, has it all…and then some. We stopped for brunch. (In fact, we stopped for a meal midway between breakfast time and lunchtime. It’s a certainty the word “brunch” has never been spoken in this down-to-earth place.)
Adjoining the all-purpose dry goods/hardware/automotive/grocery store is a strange little fluorescent-lit eating shed where, among a hodgepodge of merchandise and posters for automobile parts, breakfast and lunch are served at low, low prices. Seating is at booths or one long communal table covered with oilcloth.
We arrived too early for the daily special of chicken breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, beans, applesauce, and a biscuit ($4.89), but were delighted with breakfast of biscuits and gravy and an all-purpose true-country meal of soup beans and corn bread. As we dined at one of the booths, the lady who made the food chitchatted with us and was horrified to learn that a good biscuit is hard to find in some parts of the country.
In truth these were not the best biscuits and corn bread we’ve ever eaten, but the latter crumbled mighty well into the soup beans, which were hammy and delicious. And the ragtag place itself is irresistible.
Hocutt’s Carolina Barbecue
1724 Wheeling Ave.
304–845–7157
Glen Dale, WV
LD | $
Every once in a while, we walk away from a meal we’ve just found somewhere along the road and one of us declares to the other, “We do have the best job in the world.” Travis Hocutt’s place is where it most recently happened. The full name is Hocutt’s Carolina Barbecue and Ice Cream, but the truth is that we ate no ice cream so we cannot tell you about that. But we can tell you that the barbecue, the hush puppies, the country ham, the collard greens, the macaroni and cheese, and the real home-brewed iced tea were all exemplary.
Travis does the cooking and his wife tends the dining room, and the two of them are a joyful duo. Even though it was a fairly busy lunch hour, Travis had plenty of time to pop out of the kitchen on several occasions to chat with us and old friends and regular customers who occupied the tables. Travis told us that the recipe for his hush puppies came from his grandmother, and oh, wow, what great hush puppies they are. Small and irregular-shaped, extremely crusty but with creamy insides, they come with a choice of honey butter, molasses butter, or just plain warm butter. We went crazy dipping ours and devouring them even before the meal arrived. Every meal at Hocutt’s starts with hush puppies.
The barbecue is eastern North