Recipe's past a slice of life
You can hunt down a loaf of crusty horn bread, beloved Italian specialty, only in North Plymouth
The three young men who immigrated to Plymouth in the early 1900s didn't know one another, but they had three things in common: They came from northern Italy, they were bakers, and each had a recipe for a unique type of bread.
The recipes for the "horn bread" made by Etelredo Pedrini, Tullio Crociati, and Primo Balboni were popular for decades, and after a brief hiatus, one is still being baked. So today, North Plymouth residents say that if you want to try this Italian specialty - at least on this side of the Atlantic - you have to come to their neighborhood.
Recipes for horn bread have been closely guarded family secrets for generations. The peculiar-looking bread, with horns jutting from its four corners, calls to mind some prehistoric crustacean. And its exterior is similarly hard. As one North Plymouth Italian put it, "You could pound in a nail with it."
But that solid outer shell protects a soft, flavorful interior, so the bread remains a favorite, particularly among older Italian residents and North Plymouth's newest immigrants, from Brazil.
Charlie Vandini, the owner of Charlie's Ace Hardware in North Plymouth, re members when all three bakeries were operating. His family bought bread from all of them.
"I know horn bread was around for as long as I can remember, and that's more than 70 years," Vandini said. "You'd eat it with soup, sliced meat, chicken cacciatore, and everything else. We'd get it seven days a week."
Horn bread was never sliced, said Vandini. "You just tore it off. . . . I liked to dip it in sauce." Leftovers were grated for bread crumbs.
Vandini's neighbor Enzo Monti recalls the horns being given to babies to teethe on.
Monti's relatives still live in Ferrara, a northern Italian region often called "the bread basket of Italy." "Cornetto ferrarese," most likely the Italian prototype for the horn bread of Plymouth, remains a staple there.
The bread dates back hundreds of years, Monti said. "But if I want it when I'm in Ferrara, I have to go to a bakery," he said. "It's not something you make at home."
It's also not something that's easy to find in this country. Many of Plymouth's Italian immigrants came from Ferrara and nearby Bologna, while those in other Italian-American enclaves, such as Boston's North End, hailed from other areas.
Michele Torpor, who conducts tours of the North End, said she learned how to make horn bread while studying cooking in Bologna. She said the only other place she has come across horn bread is in Springfield.
In fact, the Balboni Bakery in Springfield makes what owner Mae Balboni calls "star" bread, which is in the shape of an "H," or just like horn bread. She added that her family isn't related to the Plymouth Balbonis.
In Plymouth, the Pedrini bakery on Standish Avenue opened around 1915, said his granddaughter Lynne Govoni.
Govoni said her grandfather made a few hundred loaves of horn bread a day, every day except Christmas, in a brick oven. "The bakery was practically all oven," Govoni said. "For the holidays, everyone in the neighborhood would bring their turkeys to the bakery to cook them."
The Pedrini bakery was a family affair for more than 35 years, and its main offering was horn bread. "My father, my grandmother, and my aunt would get up at 3 in the morning and make the dough," Govoni said. "They would stand at a long table and roll it out."
Govoni said the horns were made by kneading the corners and stretching the dough. Her family's recipe called for rolling the dough out in one piece.
The family originally delivered the bread to households and markets in a horse-drawn wagon. If a family was short on cash, Pedrini might accept eggs, chickens, or homemade wine in trade.
Govoni's father, Columbo Pedrini, and her grandfather ran the bakery together when she was a young girl. "I still remember how my father would take a loaf out of the oven and tap it on the bottom to see if it was done."
Etelredo Pedrini died in 1951. His son closed the bakery the following year because he wanted to spend more time with his family. "I still have the last horn bread that my father baked," Govoni said. "It was made in October of 1951."
The bread, coated with a shellac-like sealant, has shrunk a little over time, but has somehow survived more than five decades.
Sometime in the early 1900s, Tullio Crociati opened his bakery on Cherry Street after arriving from northern Italy. "But when World War II broke out, my father went to work in the shipyard," Tullio's son, Mario, said recently.
"The bakery closed in the 1940s, and my father took his recipe for horn bread to the grave," Crociati said. "But when I think of it, I can still taste it today, after 70 years."
The third bakery, on Forest Avenue, was opened by Primo Balboni around 1920 and remained open into the 21st century. "The bakery continued through four generations," said Primo's great-granddaughter Debbie Balboni Galante.
Galante insisted that her ancestor's recipe was the best because the texture of the interior was the softest and smoothest. Galante's grandfather and father, Clyde and Clyde Jr., respectively, continued the bakery business until Gallante's two brothers, Clyde III and Jeffrey Balboni, took over.
The family made horn bread with Primo's recipe until the brothers sold the business, about five years ago. "After that, my brothers just made the bread for themselves," Gallante said.
North Plymouth residents quickly felt the absence of their beloved horn bread, but neither the Balbonis nor the Pedrinis were ready to make public their long-secret recipes.
Then, in 2005, Doris Pedrini, Govoni's mother and Etelredo's daughter-in-law, did something that initially stunned her family: She shared the Pedrini recipe for horn bread with Kosta Haveles, owner of the 3A Café and Bakery in North Plymouth.
And so horn bread became available once again, this time baked by Jackie Jardim.
Peter Nionakis has since bought the 3A Café and Bakery, where Jardim still bakes, and he continues to honor Doris Pedrini's requests that the recipe be kept secret and that the bread be distributed only through North Plymouth businesses.
The bread is sold at 3A Café and Bakery, Piantedosi's Butcher Shop, Perry's Market, and Clyde's Deli, all in North Plymouth.
"We have people call us in the morning to put aside a loaf. We sell out every day," said Rick Giuliotti, owner of Perry's.
Christine Legere can be reached at christinelegere@yahoo.com. 