Every city claims a food. Philadelphia has its cheesesteak. Montreal has smoked meat. Toronto has a bacon sandwich from a market stall, and the story behind it is older than most people think.
It starts with William Davies, who came to Toronto from England in 1854 and started selling cured pork at St. Lawrence Market. He rolled boneless pork loin in ground yellow peas to keep it fresh longer, and the cut became known as peameal bacon. Cornmeal replaced the peas after the Second World War, but the name stuck.
The sandwich itself came later. In the 1960s, market butcher Joe Hoiner had the idea to fry the ends of his peameal loins and stuff them into a fresh kaiser bun with honey mustard, a way to use what would otherwise go to waste. The idea landed at Carousel Bakery, but it did not become a fixture until the Biancolin family took over the bakery in 1977 and put the sandwich on the menu for good. By 2016, it was official: then Mayor John Tory named it Toronto’s Signature Sandwich.
The story almost ended differently. In 2025, brothers Robert and Maurice Biancolin, the second generation to run Carousel Bakery, retired after 48 years behind the counter. They handed the business to the Pulla family of Johnvince Foods, owners of Colborne’s Big Apple, on one condition: every staff member stayed on. The name on the lease changed. The hands frying the peameal behind the counter didn’t.
