Capitol Hill got a good look at West Virginia food and beverage at Tuesday’s Taste of West Virginia in the Hart Senate Office Building, including the crowning of the pepperoni roll as the 2013 CQ Roll Call Taste of America winner.

For a closer look at Mountain State food, though, Garden and Gun’s Daily Shot blog interviewed Berkeley Springs chef Damian Heath of Lot 12 Public House about his approach to West Virginia cuisine.

“I’d say that West Virginia food is about getting the most out of what’s available. It’s immigrant cooking, poverty cooking. … Pepperoni rolls, of course. You can find them everywhere. We are about two hours from Fairmont, where they originated, but they still sell them in 7-11 stores up here,” Heath, a West Virginia native, told one of America’s great magazines.

Heath also points out that while Berkeley Springs isn’t quite the tourist destination it used to be, it’s still pretty close to D.C. and a nice getaway for city denizens.

We’d also be remiss in not wishing the Mountain State a happy 150th Birthday, belatedly. On June 20, 1863, a collection of northwest Virginia counties seceded from the commonwealth in the heart of the Civil War to join the Union.