Faith Works 1-26-24

Faith Works 1-26-24
Jeff Gill

Work, food, and family
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You've been traveling with me in search of shredded chicken sandwiches, those simple assemblies of deboned canned chicken, cracker crumbs, and perhaps a can of cream of something soup (to use the most basic recipe of the many that are out there, it turns out).

And we had a detour into West Virginia last week, to consider the homely delights of the pepperoni roll, a another simple meal very intentionally created to serve something filling in a way that travels and eats well for coal miner, even though they've developed far beyond those roots.

In seeking out the strange story of shredded chicken, it's worth repeating that they turn out to be a very location specific delicacy. People who grew up in Licking County or central Ohio have been shocked to move to Chicago or New Jersey let alone California and find out that as basic as the combo is, it's not everywhere.

Even within Ohio, somewhere around Ashland they stop showing up, and long-time local folk confirm you don't find shredded chicken on menus in Parma and definitely not in Cleveland. Towards Cincinnati, the range is maybe to Washington Court House but that's debatable: they definitely don't compete with chili over spaghetti in the Queen City area.

Yet they do run up through Toledo, and as far northwest as Wauseon. Which is where the story gets interesting, because of the opposite direction. I saw shredded chicken served at a few lunch counters in Fairmont, West Virginia — yes, the birthplace of the pepperoni roll — when I moved there in 1993.

I also was startled to see some familiar names in the obituaries, with ties directly back to Newark. It didn't take long to connect this through Owens-Illinois, glass manufacturing and bottle making. From 1910 to 1982, they had a plant there employing thousands, and clearly employees sometimes moved between sites. Newark Star Glass Works began in 1871, Edward Everett expanded their production taking over in 1880, becoming the Ohio Bottle Company and ultimately a part of Owens-Corning making fiberglas from 1934, as it continues to do so.

There's a whole complex corporate history glossed over in there, but between Shields and Everett here, and Edward Libbey plus Michael Joseph Owens up in the Toledo area, there's a web of connections (pulling Henry Ford in early on as they made automotive glass for him, and the Findlay area where Mr. Owens first figured out how to mass produce glass bulbs for Mr. Edison before branching out into bottle making technology). The common thread for me, though, is shredded chicken.

I can't prove it, and there no "miner's lunchbox" origin story, but the odd outline of shredded chicken territory seems to follow the glass making network, with interesting puddles in outlying places like Fairmont which to me seals the deal. Somehow, maybe with the gas burners always there to use in simmering a pot, I think shredded chicken began in bottle works and glass factories, and traveled with their skilled laborers as they moved about with the development of the mass produced bottle industry. Let's just say the data fits.

Yet within that well defined irregular splotch on the map of the Midwest, mostly within central and northwestern Ohio, there is a richness of variation. You could line up a dozen different shredded chicken sandwiches, and from a distance they'd look the same, but in the eating, they'd each have a unique recipe, process, and taste. They're the same, yet different.

Which takes me from lunch counters and football concession stands to church basements, and those deep roasters, and remembered scents, familiar flavors. All somewhat the same, each so very distinct.

Can you give me one last week on this delicious subject?


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's feeling awfully hungry right now. Share your preferred recipe for shredded chicken at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.