28-04-2025
The history of Erie's famous pepperoni balls
The pepperoni ball originated during the depression. Italian immigrants would take the scraps left over from their fish, and wives would roll the scraps in dough, deep fry them and give them to their family. But as the economy improved, people started experimenting with other fillings besides fish scraps.
'Eventually, it was decided to stay with sliced pepperoni. Everybody loves pepperoni, and it has a really good flavor. Its a nice mix of the warm grease and it melts right into the bread and especially with the cheese and pepperoni ball you get the nice chewyness of the cheese the nice pepperoni meat in there, and deep fry it, and its a home town favorite,' said Tom Spagel with Stanganelli's Italian Foods.
Over the decades, the hometown favorite has made its mark in Erie. Stanganelli's is one of the local places that make them.
'It's one of those unique fun things about Erie. Pepperoni balls are just fun, whether you are at a grade school ice cream social, they will have them there, whether it's at the Erie SeaWolves and baseball, or the Otters. Anywhere there are kids, there's families, people like pepperoni balls,' said Spagel.
He said pepperoni rolls are made all over the country, but Erie's are deep-fried.
Stanganelli's Italian Foods is an older building, with a lot of history, a lot of people inside and a lot of machinery to make the famous Erie staple.
Tom and his brother Jimmy have owned and operated the building for over three decades. They bought it from the fourth owner of the business.
The business was founded in 1961 by Italian chief Cosmo Staginelli.
When Tom and his brother took over, they had three employees and were located on 25th and East Avenue.
Since then, they have expanded to about 40 employees, and they have been in their current building for 27 years. They sell mostly to grocery stores and distributors.
What does it mean to work for a company that means so much to the people of Erie?
'I never really looked like it like that, I always looked at it like just hanging out with my guys and just making good product, you know? And I mean it's one big family thing that we do,' said Raymond Hansbrew, a Staginelli's employee.
Another aspect that makes the pepperoni ball special is that they are made by hand.
Spagel said last year they made 1.2 million pepperoni balls, each one rolled and deep-fried by hand.
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