|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Spiedies (spee-dees) are made of a single kind of meat that has been cut into one inch cubes, marinated for 24 hours or more, roasted on skewers over a grill, and then served on a slice of Italian bread or on a sub roll. There is nothing else needed to add to the sandwich, no condiments, no vegetables, no seasonings, because the marinade does the flavoring beforehand. As the marinated meat is cooking, the juices drip lightly onto the fire thus creating a delicious smoking effect for the meat as well as hungry appetites relished by the aroma in the air.
Endicott, New York is the birthplace of IBM and Salamida’s State Fair Spiedie Sauce. Up until 1975 no one had bottled a marinade dressing for the local picnic favorite: Spiedies. Salamida’s Original State Fair Spiedie Sauce was the answer to thousands of people who wanted the convenience of using a consistently delicious marinade sauce.
Rob Salamida began the business when he was 16 years old by cooking Spiedie sandwiches on a charcoal grill in front of a local tavern, to earn college money, he finally convinced the New York State Fair officials after more than one year of letter writing, to allow him space for an outdoor booth. At the time, he was the youngest person (19) to ever have his own food concession on the Syracuse Fairgrounds. Every summer for 12 years he built his reputation from the much sought after Spiedie sandwich. During one memorable year, a visitor at the Fair spent the entire day between the Spiedie booth and the beer tent and consumed 52 Spiedie sandwiches.
Rob realized that the popularity of the Spiedies was growing. He came up with the idea of bottling a marinade sauce after a tornado nearly struck his concession stand at the 1975 State Fair. He started his bottling operation in his parent’s basement rec room on a ply wood covered pool table, filling each bottle by hand with his special mix of herbs and spices, blended vinegars and vegetable oil. Out of the trunk of his car on his lunch hour from his job, he delivered his product to local grocery stores. While preserving over the cold winter months when grocers would not stock the sauce, eventually he won their favor and saw year round sales. From delivering out of his car trunk to watching tractor trailers depart fully loaded with sauce from his new 15,000 square foot facility, the reputation has grown nationally and people call daily to inquire how they can get the sauce from their hometown.
The most unique aspect is that today, just as when Rob started on his parents pool table, the production method is the same; ingredients are bottled in separate stages to ensure the exact amount is the same in each bottle. The assurance of quality over high speed production methods has been the touchstone of Salamida’s State Fair Spiedie Sauce. It is still a hometown sauce with a homemade flavor that has sold over 2 million bottles.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
