A South Jersey Expat Longs for the Italian Bakeries She Left Behind
I no longer live in South Jersey. My husband and I decided to spend our retirement in South Carolina, where low taxes and a slower pace are appealing. Besides family and friends, what do I miss the most about the area where I lived for many decades?
Italian bakeries.
Just push open the door and step into a fairy-tale setting where baskets piled high with crusty rolls and shelves with twisted, long, or round loaves await the hungry peasant. In the old days, you might find the baker’s grandmother welcoming customers while sweeping the floorboards.
Heck, if you were in Glassboro, Gloucester County, until fairly recently, you parked your car on Ellis Street and stood in line outside in the driveway, the sun setting in late afternoon, to wait in turn for your bread. At Ricci’s Bakery, Alfred Ricci crafted his brick oven loaves in a tiny cinderblock building in the backyard.
The bread was hot as you pulled off hunks in the car on the return trip, the extra order on the back seat for “home” where you could slab on butter to perfect the experience. You were covered in dusty flour.
Many Italian bakeries, often family-run businesses, have morphed through the decades to offer ready-to-go entrees and Italian specialties including cheeses and full delicatessens. Many have remodeled, updating their storefronts with ceramic tiles, rotating display cases, and bistro tables and chairs. But really, at the core of all of these family establishments is the bread.
Whether puff or high-top loaves, hoagie or sub rolls, seeded or plain, the aroma of the bread in any of these establishments greets you. Good Italian bread is crusty with a springy inside texture. Each South Jersey bakery has its loyal customers biting their way through hoagie rolls and chewing their praises.
Pastries and baked goods abound in these bakeries, frosting swirled in high, deliberate peaks (unlike the canned frosting Mom smeared on your childhood cupcakes) and fruit filling ready to ooze and stain fingers and faces. The sweets in a South Jersey Italian bakery are Americanized desserts on steroids—the baker generous with icing roses on birthday cakes, plastic character picks on cupcakes, and sugar squiggles on frosted brownies. For the holidays, splurge on a Yule log: chocolate cake spread and rolled in butter cream icing and frosted in swirls of chocolate.
My favorites are simpler: butter cookies and the tea biscuits. I’m a sucker for the double cookies. Small, with chocolate or raspberry filling sandwiched between two crumbly cookies, they are either drizzled with dark chocolate or sprinkled with colored jimmies—sometimes, both! Tea biscuits are loaded with soft, chewy raisins, glazed with an egg wash for a golden-brown top. With a cup of coffee, either treat is about as good as it gets. As good as life is in South Carolina, our taste buds have to search for other epicurean delights.
Most know the phrase “sweet as sugar,” but not everyone knows the term “good as bread” from older fairy tales. Peasants who told stories to each other knew the delights of freshly baked bread warm from the oven. If one was described in this way, they were steadfast, kind, loving yet humble.
Munching slices of bread from my favorite South Jersey Italian bakery reminds me that even if you can’t go home again, it’s a delicious place to visit.
A SELECTION OF SOUTH JERSEY ITALIAN BAKERIES
MY FAVORITE:
Liscio’s Italian Bakery & Deli
128 Delsea Drive S. #2605, Glassboro
856.243.5470
lisciosbakery.com
Sewell and Sicklerville locations as well
OTHER GREAT CHOICES:
Aversa’s Italian Bakery
801 NJ 168, Turnersville
856.227.8005
aversasbakery.com
Brigantine and Margate locations as well
Deluxe Italian Bakery Inc.
680 E. Clements Bridge Road, Runnemede
856.939.5000
deluxebakery.com
Del Buono’s Bakery
319 S. Black Horse Pike
Haddon Heights
856.546.9585
delbruonosbakery.com
Marlton and Stratford locations as well
