Every August, when the Iowa State Fair rolls around, my Midwestern relatives make the trip from their scattered rural homes to the capital city of Des Moines to see one of the world’s largest pigs, the famous butter sculptures, and to eat their way through the fairground’s endless midway vending booths.
Like the rest of us, my almost 90-year-old grandmother loves an indulgent hot, saucy, cheesy sandwich. She and my late grandfather operated their dairy and beef farm in northern Missouri for many years, stocking all of their extended families’ freezers with enough ground beef and steak to collectively save us hundreds of trips to the grocery store. Though my grandmother doesn’t make the trek to the sweltering, busily buzzing—albeit highly entertaining—11-day state fair any more, she still holds a soft spot for the fair’s famed Italian grinder sandwich.
This hoagie rolled mess of ground beef and hot Italian sausage in pizza sauce with melted mozzarella made its way from the fairgrounds to our family tables four or five generations ago. Mothers have scrawled the simple recipe onto white lined recipe cards for their daughters for as long as I can recall.
The Iowa State Fair Legacy
The Italian grinder sandwich (called the Guinea grinder once-upon-a-time) is a comfort food classic. The satisfying, meaty creation combines minced onion and fresh basil with shakes of fennel seed and red pepper flakes for a sandwich we come back to over and over again…