People enjoy sharing pizza with their friends because the circular shape reminds them of the rings they'll exchange in that evening's Friendship Commitment Ceremony. Circle around this Groupon.

$10 for $20 Worth of Pizza, Pasta, and Sandwiches

Paninis are $7, calzones are $8, fettuccine alfredo starts at $6, and gourmet pizzas start at $10, such as the Meat Lovers pizza, which chefs load with pepperoni, ham, sausage, bacon, and beef.

The menu features more than a dozen different traditional toppings, including one familiar to pizza lovers near and far: pepperoni. Peruse our guide to pepperoni for a satisfying slice of insight about an edible icon.

Pepperoni: A Crossing of Culinary Cultures

If you ask for pepperoni in Naples, you might be handed a bushel of bell peppers. Although the name may sound Italian, America’s second-most popular pizza topping (after cheese) caught on closer to home. Peperoni simply refers to the vegetable, the second p having sneaked into the blend of pork, beef, and spices sometime in the early 20th century when Italian-American butchers began adapting cured salami such as soppressata and salsiccia into a softer, smokier sausage. The process of making pepperoni is similar to that of any dry salami: a chef grinds the meat with spices that often include fennel, pepper, and paprika, then adds enough salt and lactic acid to preserve it at room temperature. After a brief period of fermentation, the sausage spends the next 12–20 days hanging to dry—pepperoni isn’t cooked unless it’s popped into the oven atop a blanket of mozzarella.

Although pepperoni is largely confined to the pizza parlor and the sub shop in most of the U.S., West Virginia’s state cuisine celebrates the pepperoni roll: an unassuming hunk of bread with a simple pepperoni filling baked inside. Italians who immigrated to work in the coal mines in the early 1900s found the rolls a quick, easy lunch that didn’t need refrigeration or reheating. Miners—and tailgaters—still enjoy them today, and they’re the spicy, slightly greasy lifeblood of several bakeries.