On the outside, they look like a plain hunk of bread. Or maybe a small, uncut hoagie bun. Or an elongated dinner roll. The exterior provides no clue, no tipoff, that meat awaits inside. Cut or bite into a West Virginia pepperoni roll, though, and the smell and flavor of an Italian kitchen come forth. Broken bread reveals sausage.

It’s that mystery of unseen meat baked inside bread that got the attention of the United States Department of Agriculture in the 1980s and almost killed the pepperoni roll. But more on that story in a bit.