PrintMorrone's Bakery Closes: Honest (Slow) Food Takes Another Hit
"I keep thinking about all those nice people. Where are they going to get their bread?" —Rosa Morrone
Rosa Morrone in her bakery, from "New York Eats (More)."
Morrone's, one of New York's great Italian bread bakeries, closed its doors last month, and New York City (and the whole country for that matter) is a slightly less warm and hospitable place as a result.
The sign on the Morrone's door:
To our friend and customers:
For over 50 years, the Morrone family has been providing you with finest breads baked the old way, all natural and of course without preservatives. Along the way, our customers became our friends. Our neighborhood wasn't just a place to do business in, it was our home. Not a day goes by when someone doesn't stop in to say, "Hi Rosa," and just shoot the breeze. While our neighborhood will still be our home, it is with great regret, that we must now say goodbye to our customers and friends, as we close our bakery.
We wish to thank you, our friends and customers for your support and loyalty all these years.
Sincerely,
The Morrone Family"
This is what I wrote about Morrone's in New York Eats: "In its seventy-year-old brick ovens, the Morrone family makes not only great Italian white, whole wheat, and semolina loaves in every shape imaginable but also terrific sandwich-sized baguettes and the city's best onion rolls. Morrone's prosciutto bread, filled with prosciutto, salami, and cheese, is out of this world, a meal in itself."
From the New York Times story reporting the closing:
Generations of customers, many of them barely living above the poverty level, often went home to find that Mrs. Morrone—for whom a baker's dozen always meant more than 13—had tossed into their bags a lot more bread than they had actually bought.
This scenario is being played out all over America. High-quality local food purveyors who have served their community for fifty years or more are going the way of the Edsel.
What does this say about the slowness of the Slow Food movement? Plenty!
With its closing, the city (and maybe the country's) best onion roll leaves us as well. Honest food purveyors like the Morrones are (figuratively) being replaced by the Panera Breads of the world, and serious eaters feel powerless to do anything about it. More than a few years ago, I went out to lunch with Patrick Martins, who was then the head of Slow Food USA. He asked me what Slow Food could do to get writers like me more involved. I told him the organization had to make its mission more relevant to Americans by tackling specific issues and actually doing something about them. I told him it should be Slow Food's mission to make sure the artisanal food makers—the bread bakers, the cheese and sausage makers of this country—have a secure future that will enable them to pass their knowledge and passion on to succeeding generations. I said that if he did that, a whole lot of folks would get involved.
Slow Food seems incapable of getting it together. It's an organization that's easy to get behind. Who among us doesn't believe in the Slow Food movement? But it's an organization that operates at 15,000 feet, focusing on macro global issues. The Southern Foodways Alliance does great work in this remedial vein I'm talking about, everything from oral histories to tours to rebuilding Willie Mae Seaton's restaurant in New Orleans. But shouldn't Slow Food USA step up in this regard and find a way to ensure the future of slow food makers in this country?
Otherwise we will all witness the demise of places all over the country like Morrone's Bakery with alarming regularity. Have you witnessed the demise of a Morrone's-like place where you live?
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15 Comments:
For an all too short period, two years, a local business would grind their own wheat & produce the best tasting, quality whole-grain breads each day. Then the Low Carb craze began--resulting in their demise. People are fickle.
JEP at 9:47AM on 09/24/07
Thank you for the Ed-itorial. Interestingly, Panera began its life here in St. Louis as the St. Louis Bread Co., and continues to operate as that today in this area. It was one of the first purveyors of stuff beyond supermarket bread after our old German bakeries pretty much died out and the Italian bakeries had given themselves over to a bland, unchewy product that was mostly sold to restaurants. We appreciated what they were doing, and patronized them as a local outfit. That's been less than thirty years ago, I believe.
Years ago, there was a play, and then a movie called "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" Now the question is, will success spoil successful local enterprises? There seems to be little ground between small and struggling or unwilling to upsize and a successful small enterprise eager to or being pushed to franchise.
I mourn the loss of such places. One of Missouri's great small food treasures, Esacar's smokehouse in Cape Girardeau, has gone down the tubes this month. Sigh....
lemons at 9:51AM on 09/24/07
Maybe it was because I grew up in the midwest, and there were big German populations, but when I was a kid every town seemed to have a bakery. You could go in after school and buy a cookie, or parents bought bread and sweet rolls for the weekend. They all seem to have disappeared -- was it the supermarkets that did it? I know it's the one thing we really don't have out here in my little town in Montana yet -- there's a pretty good bread bakery over in Bozeman, and we have a cafe that makes nice cakes here, but we don't have a real bakery -- the kind you walked into and there were cases full of pastries and cookies and bread and cakes. They've just disappeared.
Charlotte at 11:43AM on 09/24/07
There have been no Morrone-type places where I live for some time. The only places that have an aspect of being authentic within the culture which provide some "native" or "slow" foods would be the country stores which are still dotted here and there in out-of-the-way places. Homegrown (literally sometimes) produce, preserves, local cheese, fried pies etc.
The comment about Slow Foods vs. Southern Foodways Alliance is an interesting one for (as much as I can admire their mission) I've never felt emotionally pulled towards Slow Foods as a group, and have felt emotionally attracted to SFA. This has nothing to do with my geographic location in the South, for I'm native to the North.
I pulled up both websites and immediately understood why my support heads towards Southern Foodways rather than Slow Foods. The Southern Foodways site appears to have a focus on culture and people (which is understandable as it is an outgrowth of interdisciplinary studies of culture and people in the South, not simply a focus on food) whereas the Slow Foods site looks more like mass marketing for a political agenda . . . food without the people, food without the culture, food rather with ideology and politics.
Food to me is about people and culture. I like to taste and know people and culture in my food not politics and ideology. This sense of political movement rather than cultural honoring is what likely dismays me about Slow Foods.
As to what each group accomplishes and how, it's interesting that the Southern Foodways Alliance is part of the University of Mississipi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture, which is not solely food-centered but rather culture centered. Their Encyclopedia of Southern Culture is considered a definitive research tool. There is also likely to be various forms of funding available to the Southern Foodways group simply because they are part of a research department functioning at a major university. This sort of funding Slow Foods likely does not have access to, and it often is not minimal.
That was a long answer to your question, but it was a good question that gave ideas for thinking beyond the specifics of what it asked.
I'll just toddle off to the country store for some fried pies and hoop cheese now.
Karen Resta at 12:00PM on 09/24/07
Answer for me is yes...Bay Area girl here (now in Portland, OR). It started with La Brea Bakery breads showing up in every Costco as 'Fresh Baked Artisan Breads', same thing Panera does & the people believe it for some reason. It all comes down to people making the decision to support local purveyors (of anything) rather than the easiest & cheapest offerings out there.......they simply don't because it doesn't fit their lifestyle anymore....we are our own demise.
As for Slow Food.....I've been nothing but disappointed with their approach/agenda. Thanks for the link to SFA. My membership expired a couple years ago & I haven't seen a need to renew.
Kim Nyland at 1:25PM on 09/24/07
Buffalo NY still has 3 outposts of Pumpernick N Pastry, a fantastic, family owned bakery. http://www.pumpernick.com/. I feel like this is the kind of shop where the food does celebrate its people and culture. The breads, especially the Russian and Polish ryes, are amazing. The staff are wonderful and greet everyone with terms of endearment. Oh, and they always have samples of their goodies out to taste. Heavenly! Except during winter, I often wish I didn't live 1,000 miles away.
Library Lady at 1:52PM on 09/24/07
But La Brea Bakery bread is fresh-baked artisanal bread. The dough is made with natural starter, is shaped and docked by hand, and goes through a long, flavor-developing rise before they are par-baked and flash frozen, to be baked fresh onsite. Almost everywhere the bread is sold, it is better than what was available before it showed up. (It is certainly better than what used to be sold at Costco.) And when local bakers come up with product that is actually superior to La Brea bread, they tend to do pretty well with it.
condiment at 2:05PM on 09/24/07
Someone needs to come up with an "endangered species" list for each metropolitan area and make it a mission to publicize the heck out of it, enlisting local food writers, etc. Less glamorous than philosophizing about the ecosystem, but possibly of a lot more immediate and practical value. "Ed Levine Eats" was that kind of an effort for NY, but something less ambitious would work for a lot of places and even NY could use something like this on an online basis. Perhaps these could be done wiki-style.
gustoct at 2:55PM on 09/24/07
I interned with Slow Food recently and left confused about what the organization is doing. The 10-person staff (some of whom are part-time) must respond to the inquiries of over 14,000 members, many of whom seemed to want to be involved on a larger scale. Start your own convivium was often the enthusiastic response. A wonderful idea, but not practical for the average fully-employed person. I still support the idea of Slow Food, but I believe that the organization has lost something in their travel across the Atlantic. The principles of a clean, safe and fair food system as outlined in Carlo Petrini's latest book, Slow Food Nation, are a wonderful idea, but it is based in the Italian culture and their ideas about food. Additionally, as a member of the E.U., there is greater government regulation in Italy's food system - in my mind making a Slow Food system more feasible. I wondered why SFUSA didn't have a more political agenda, and thought it might have to do with the need to remain unbiased politically to ensure their grant-funding; I never found out the answer to this question. They are approaching their seven-year itch in the United States and if they do want to shed their elitist image they will need to make a statement about where they stand on the many issues that threaten the United States food system, starting with lobbyists, corporate tie-ins and the like. They have added their support for the Farm Bill legislation and have many wonderful programs that encourage the preservation of heritage foods, but this is often preaching to the choir - I feel they need to make a bold statement about where they stand on the U.S. food system and why, risk losing some members, but gain others.
Ezmerelda at 3:14PM on 09/24/07
I am so impressed with what people are saying in this thread. Let me give you my take on La Brea. When it comes to La Brea Bakery bread, everything is relative. Yes, it's not as good as it was when Nancy Silverton was making every loaf out a single bakery. But even in its current corporate incarnation it is a remarkably good product, far superior to Panera, mostly because Nancy is a) still involved with the company and b) Nancy just knows what good is when it comes to bread in a way that the folks at Panera just don't. If La Brea Bakery bread was replacing local high-quality bread bakers in Costco in other cities that would be one thing. In most cases they are either the first good bread to come to those places or (like SF) they co-exist peacefully with the Acmes and Tartines of the world.
Ed Levine at 3:21PM on 09/24/07
Luckily I lived 1 mile from Acme.....& SF has been spolied for decades with great bread before the Artisan/Acme (Steve Sullivan is one that i look up to) movement began. Chad Robertson is the best baker I've come across..imo.
I'm all for the education La Brea's mass distribution has given the nation ....what Artisan bread can taste like, but to call it Artisan Bread is simply not true. I'm totally bias, I know this.....we used to have a wood fired oven, organic, sourdough 'artisan' bakery...part of the bread bakers guild & former farmers market vendors. I know first hand what the convenience factor of these par baked breads can have on mom & pop shops (Not in SF)....I was told daily by customers & fellow bakers. No....Par baked bread is not Artisan, it's par baked. The term Artisan Bread actually has lost it's meaning since the mass production boom. It used to be an item on the agenda of the guild...What to call Artisan Baking now? Hand crafted baking? Naturally Fermented Craft breads? It never amounted to anything but it's an issue.
Kim Nyland at 5:04PM on 09/24/07
Taking this discussion a slightly diffferent (but equally Slow Food) direction, my neighborhood is about to lose a thirty year old family-run farmstand: http://windmillfarmsproduce.com/index.htm. No one can protect us from bagged produce contaminated with e-coli, but this family has to erect four walls and a roof to stay in business? Tell me how that makes sense?
As for the bread discussion, as Kim said, thank goodness for Acme (and a little further up the road, Della Fattoria).
CulinaryCuriosity at 5:30PM on 09/24/07
I too paused when it came time to renew my Slow Food USA membership because it seemed to be such a diffuse organization and I wasn't having any fun at my local convivium. I think I will renew, but only because I believe we need all types of organizations and people and agendas to keep good food viable. I admit to a bit of selfishness in my expectation that a nonprofit organization "fix" the problem in exchange for my dues. Even though I'm disappointed in SF-USA, I think it's unfair to compare them to Southern Foodways Alliance and force an "either-or" dichotomy. We all have our role to play in keeping and reviving valuable food traditions. Writers, farmers, amateur bakers, critics, chefs, retailers and restauranters. This reminds me of the food co-op wars during the early 1970's when the natural and organic agenda was hijacked by activists who wanted canned goods on the co-op shelves so "the people" would come in and buy things familiar to them. We won't get far by criticizing SF-USA or LaBrea, or any "sell-out." This is a cultural war that needs its soldiers everywhere with all sorts of strategies. Let's not dilute our efforts by getting too pure about this.
doglover at 5:31PM on 09/24/07
So many things to talk about: I agree with Kim about La Brea Bakery bread. It shouldn't be called artisanal bread. Artisinally inspired, maybe? Doglover makes a good point about needless in-fighting. As far as Slow Foods goes, though, I just get so frustrated seeing so much wasted effort and resources. If Slow Foods were tactically and strategically smarter I would have problem with them at all.
Ed Levine at 5:43PM on 09/24/07
I'm not a part of Slow Foods or of Southern Foodways Alliance. Basically, I'm not a "joiner".
But if this is to be considered a "cultural war" that "needs soldiers everywhere with all sorts of strategies" one of those strategies might be to entice or persuade people like me who sit on the fence to get off the fence and join their side.
To me, SFA's approach and/or marketing signals have a better chance at doing this than Slow Foods does, speaking solely for myself.
Karen Resta at 6:09PM on 09/24/07