Leidenheimer Baking Company

Loaves of Leidenheimer's bread at the Oak Street Po'Boy Festival 2011
Leidenheimer building in New Orleans' Central City neighborhood

Leidenheimer Baking Company is a bakery in New Orleans. It was started in 1896 by George Leidenheimer, an immigrant from Deidesheim, Germany. Initially located on Dryades Street, it moved in 1904 to Simon Bolivar Avenue, where it continues in business as the city's largest and best-known maker of po'boy bread,[1][2][3][4] a fiercely competitive niche.[5][6] Leidenheimer bought out its largest competitor, Reising's Sunrise, in the early 1990s, and still manufactures products under the Reising name. It bought another competitor, Angelo Gendusa, in the 2000s.[7][8]

The bakery was forced to close for a short time after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In the interim, Leidenheimer produced its bread in a Chicago bakery.[9][10] In recent years, Leidenheimer has made the round, seeded bread for the muffuletta sandwich at New Orleans' Central Grocery (the former baker, United Bakery, did not reopen after Katrina).[7][11]

Leidenheimer Baking Company is one of the historic businesses in the Central City section of New Orleans. To mark the company's centennial in 1996, the artwork of Bunny Matthews, creator of the "Nint' Ward"-based cartoon characters "Vic and Nat'ly", was added to the bakery's delivery trucks.[7]

References

  1. "History". Leidenheimer.
  2. Roahen, Sara (2008). Gumbo Tales. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 115.
  3. MacDonald, Brady (October 31, 2004). "Po' boy bliss in New Orleans". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2012-06-14.
  4. Powell, Mary Alice (November 4, 1987). "New Orleans Bread Fame Rises". Toledo Blade. p. 23. Retrieved 2012-06-14.
  5. "Po-Boys". Retrieved 2012-04-30.
  6. Garbarino, Steve. "The Crescent City's Greatest Po'boys". Retrieved 8 May 2012.
  7. 1 2 3 Roahen, Sara (July 20, 2006). "Katherine & Sandy Whann: Leidenheimer Baking Company". Southern Foodways Alliance. Retrieved 2012-06-14. The unedited version of this interview is available here.
  8. Tucker, Susan; Starr, S. Frederick (2009). New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Histories. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 43–44. ISBN 978-1-60473-127-9. Excerpts available at Google Books.
  9. Phillips, Valerie (August 23, 2006). "Rebuilding New Orleans, a meal at a time". Deseret News. Copy available here (subscription required)
  10. Kolb, Carolyn (May 1, 2006). "Upper Crust: The rise and survival of Leidenheimer". New Orleans Magazine. Copy available here (subscription required)
  11. Edge, John T. (2007). Southern Belly: The Ultimate Food Lover's Companion to the South. Algonquin Books. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-56512-841-5. Excerpts available from Google Books.

External links

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