Spiedie Fest at Last
Back on the Binghamton Beat.
The first food stand I saw when I walked into Spiedie Fest, the annual celebration of the Binghamton, NY, sandwich specialty, was for… Beef on Weck.
What was the Buffalo sandwich specialty—slow-roasted beef on a seeded kummelweck roll—doing in enemy territory? “The is our first year here,” the two men inside the small, red-and-white Red Osier booth said.
Even though I was not there to eat Buffalo food, I couldn’t help myself. I love Beef on Weck. I’d been to the two main purveyors in Buffalo, Charlie the Butcher and Schwabl’s, and loved what they did. You can’t get Beef on Weck in New York City for love or money. You can’t even get a decent specimen in Rochester, which is just an hour away from Buffalo. During Covid quarantine, I went so far as to make homemade kummelweck rolls at home. It was hard work, and they didn’t turn out very well.
I ordered a Beef on Weck with cheese. The roll was good, but the roast beef was tough. The sandwich was a disappointment. I threw it away half-eaten. After all, I had business to attend to: I was there to eat spiedies and needed to leave some space in my stomach.