The municipality of Larino in Italy is split between the old world and the new. Larino is an ever dwindling old town nestled in the valley, giving way to the modern new portion of the town rising in the upper area over the old Roman site. Today, the Casa del Pane bakery is a traditional bakery located in the new part of the city and its’ founder holds a unique place in the city’s history.
Until 1965, Alfredo Federico gathered dough from the local women and baked their loaves for them. Alfredo would walk the town knocking on the doors of the women who needed bread to awaken them and let them know to start their dough which had to be kneaded for two hours. After 3 hours, he would make a second round letting the women know it was time to form their dough into loaves. A third round was then made to collect the raw loaves for baking. Alfredo would carry up to 6 loaves at a time on a large board called a tavoliere. The loaves were marked by making an imprint of the house key on top of the loaf at each house before taking them for baking. As you can imagine, Alfredo became the town’s news gatherer. However, as Alfredo aged and the new town was being built up, the family tradition of the gathering of loaves faded as he was aging. The Casa del Pane was opened as a traditional bakery making their own dough for the breads they sold.
Like Casa del Pane, we take traditional Italian bread very seriously! All of our bread comes from the Original Giuliano’s in Gardena, our Uncle Paul’s deli and bakery. Opened in 1952 by our great grandparents Frances and Gaetano Giuliano, the goal was always to provide the community with the freshest food. If you haven’t visited yet, be sure to take a trip to Gardena for an authentic Italian deli and bakery for a torpedo sandwich, fresh cold cuts, imported Italian products and Italian desserts. In our opinion, this is the closest you can find to Italy.
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