The Re Store in the Northbridge neighborhood is most often cited as the originator of the continental roll (or the conti roll, or simply: the roll). The business was founded in 1936 by John Re, the son of a Sicilian immigrant and grocer. At the height of the Depression, Mr. Re pawned his wife’s engagement ring in order to purchase the building in Northbridge where the Re Store still stands.

It was — and remains — a specialty grocery store. As for the sandwich, the story goes that in the 1950s, the working men who frequented the store would buy rolls and stuff them with meats and cheese bought from the deli. And so Mr. Re took over sandwich-making duties from his customers.

Could Western Australia’s continental roll really have evolved organically with no outside influence? We will probably never know.

But I love the idea that Italian immigrant culture morphed into the same kind of crusty, meaty magic, independently, on opposite sides of the globe. The Italian roll is not a thing you can get elsewhere in Australia, even though other cities have much larger Italian populations.

(This sandwich absence is an especially hard truth for me; I went to high school and university in New York, where I happily subsisted on heroes for a large chunk of my life. I now find myself living in hero-less Melbourne.)