Spiedies, The One Food I Miss From Back Home


If I was able to fly home to where I grew up for a day and eat only one food, it would be a spiedie.  Man, I really miss spiedies.  If you have never had a spiedie (pronounced Speedy), you are missing out and you have definitely never traveled through Central New York.

If I had to describe a spiedie, it would be cubes of marinated chicken, pork, lamb, veal, venison or beef, grilled to perfection and laid out on a piece of Italian bread or an Italian bread roll.  Sometimes they may take a little of the marinade and squirt it over the top of the meat so it soaks into the Italian bread.  You eat spiedies when they are hot off the grill and because they are so good, you can never seem to cook enough.

According to Lupos, a spiedie marinade company based out of Endicott, NY, “the name spiedie comes from “spiedo,” the Italian word for “spit,” and the sandwich originally was skewered cubes of marinated lamb that were grilled to a crisp and pulled off the spit using the slice of Italian bread that you ended up eating it with.”

To cook a spiedie, you simply marinade cubes of meat in a spiedie marinade for 24 hours, place 5 to 7 cubs of marinated meat on a skewer and cook them on a grill.  Be careful not to overcook them.  When they are done, just lay the meat covered skewer in a slice of Italian bread, close the bread around the meat and pull the skewer out.  Trust me, they are easy to make and taste great.

I know there are plenty of recipes out there for the spiedie marinade, but do yourself a favor and don’t make your own for your first spiedie.  Give yourself a standard to base any recipe you may come up with or try in the future and buy some pre-made spiedie sauce from two of the biggest (and maybe the only) names in the spiedie world.

salamidaFrom the Rob Salamida Company based out of Johnson City, NY:

In 1976, Rob Salamida was the answer to all spiedie lovers’ prayers when he became the first person ever to bottle spiedie sauce and make it available for people to make spiedies at the convenience of their own homes.  Since then you can now find Salamida Sauces and Marinades beyond the Greater Binghamton region at over 1,100 supermarkets across the United States. Place your order and taste the excitement.

You can check out their spiedie marinades here: http://shop.spiedie.com/

luposFrom the Lupos Company based out of Endicott, NY:

Lupo’s Spiedies is the original Spiedie Marinade company in Endicott NY.  Lupo’s original Spiedie marinade, which consists of oil, vinegar, and a closely guarded recipe of dry Italian spices that the family has been using since 1951, came into the culinary dictionary when Sam Lupo Sr. and his brother John opened a meat market that specialized in spiedie meat (Lupo’s S&S Char Pit opened in 1978).

You can check out their spiedie marinades here: http://www.spiedies.com

I always try to add a video, because some people like videos…so here you go.

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